If you sell training, consulting, coaching or education, the step-by-step “how” you teach is losing value every day. Your clients won’t be the ones doing the work anymore, because their AI tools will do it. What still holds its value is the “what must be done.” So teach the overall concepts, and then help your clients hand the work to the AI tools they already use.
Why is my how-to knowledge worth less than it used to be?
Think about long division. Since the invention of the calculator, every single day since, our knowledge of long division has become less and less valuable. That’s what’s happening right now with knowledge work.
We’ve reached a point where the how is becoming less and less valuable because our clients won’t be the ones doing the work. Teaching people the exact levers to pull and buttons to push, and exactly how things get deployed, that era is over.
It still has some value today, and it’ll have some value tomorrow. But as the exclusive value we give to our clients, we’re done with that.
What does my client do now when I teach them a process?
Look at it from your own point of view. Say I’m going to teach you how to do something, and I go through a super granular explanation of how you do the thing.
Most likely, you’re going to say, “Yeah, that’s great, Pat. Okay, so, Claude, here’s what we need to get done.” That’s how the relationships are changing right now.
I like to think about AI as a junior employee, because these tools are our partners to get things done. If your client has a junior employee, they’re no longer training on the how. They’re learning how to delegate the what.
Is anyone already changing how they sell knowledge work?
I see it the most in marketing agencies and people who sell marketing for a living. In the last 24 months, the people who used to say “I’ll write your social media posts” or “I’ll help you write your blog posts” have been moving away from the doing of things and into the strategy of things.
Almost every single person I’ve seen who sells social is now a social media strategist. They want to tell you what you should be doing, and very few of them are doing the actual writing.
Does this mean my consulting or training business is over?
No. If you sell knowledge work, you still have a business. The client is still the same, but what the client needs from you has changed.
We’re teaching the client the what must be done, and we’re letting them know a little bit of the how. The rest is training up their AI tools, and helping them understand how your outcomes can be achieved when their junior employee is the one doing the work.
I also don’t think saying you’re AI free and you do it the old-fashioned way is enough of a defense.
Should I still teach the person, or just their AI tool?
Both, in different ways. If we want the human to learn something, we make it as technology free as possible. If we want to move a business forward, we let the boss know what’s happening, and we talk directly to the junior employee, which is their AI tool. I think that’s where we’re going.
What should I do this week?
Here’s the homework. Re-evaluate how you’re going to market with your training, education, consulting and teaching. Look at what you sell and ask how much of its value depends on teaching the how.
Then pick one thing you teach and look at it from the customer’s point of view. If they’d turn around and hand it to their AI tool, rebuild that piece around the what must be done and how their junior employee can get your outcome.
This came from Businessing with Pat Miller. Watch the full June 9, 2026 episode.