Do conversational agents based on artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT call into question the relevance and value of using a consultant?

First of all, let’s get back to the background.
ChatGPT (if we’re getting to version 4, it’s because there were a few versions before 😉) was developed by a company called OpenAI. A company, co-founded by Elon Musk, which, prior to March 2019, had been registered as a non-profit organization.
Its corporate purpose is “to promote and develop artificial reasoning with a human face that will benefit all humanity”.

Following the exponential exposure of this innovation since November 2022, which can disrupt our relationship with the keyboard, as well as the superficial ease of finding probable answers to all our questions, needs for solutions and projections in order to become an expert with 80 characters of questions, normative and ethical questioning followed, and a multitude of reports questioning the future disappearance, at best of a few dozen professions, at worst of several branches of activity.

These few lines will deal with the profession of consultant.
What is a consultant? A consultant is usually hired to solve a problem or provide specific expertise in a particular field, while a coach is hired to help an individual or team achieve personal or professional goals by identifying and overcoming obstacles. In other words, a consultant is an expert who provides specific advice, while a coach is a guide who helps develop the skills and resources of the individual or team.”

At Axone Consultant, and among our other colleagues, we prefer to call it a profession that involves the mobilization of one or more areas of expertise, the result of intensive experience and learning on one or more specialized subjects, which will be tested against operational realities and the human natures that make up a team, a department or a complete structure, enabling us, in the light of difficulties encountered and/or objectives targeted, to develop effective, even efficient, recommendations and paths to progress, adapted to their contexts.

When all is said and done, will this tool and the other versions or software that will emerge threaten the job of a consultant?
The human element remains essential to our job, the interaction, the contact, the ability to quickly understand a problem that goes beyond a process, a profitability threshold or a normative operation.
We audit, in our specialist field, we synthesize, we weigh up, in order to identify the best path of proposals to support our customer, our partner, who is wondering whether he can trust us.

Theoretical knowledge and the flow of information can be synthesized and directed by this type of tool in the field of conversational agents, but in our opinion, these answers will be put into perspective in relation to our theoretical and experiential knowledge and, above all, our relationship with people, as this remains essential.
We mustn’t forget that the essence of our profession is to propose the most appropriate solutions for our areas of expertise, in relation to the tools at our disposal: training, field experience, customer experience, books, theses, search engines and now artificial intelligence.

We therefore believe that ChatGPT-type conversational agents based on artificial intelligence will enable us to consolidate our expertise and continue to provide our human added value of support and advice.