The industry agreed to keep a human in the loop, then built systems where that human can't actually see what they're approving. In a firm whose product is judgment, that is the one outcome you cannot afford.

Clients stopped wanting to buy your hours, and for once that is good news. The catch is that getting paid for the result means owning the cost of every hour you overspend, which only the firm that can see itself can safely do.

The thing that makes a services firm worth more to a buyer is the same thing that makes it run better today. Both come down to whether the firm can be seen, or only remembered.