Will AI get rid of billable hours?

• WSJ: Say Goodbye to the Billable Hour, Thanks to AI

Ironically, what began as an effort to promote transparency and efficiency for legal work has since become a tyrannical arrangement with both senior people and junior associates motivated to rack up hours to maximize profits. It spread from law firms to accounting firms, consultants and most other professional services firms as the dominant mechanism for value exchange. ...

...as AI handles routine cognitive work, the remaining human contribution shifts toward judgment, creativity and relationship management—the value of which bears little relationship to time expended.

• Value-based pricing represents the most obvious alternative, where fees are tied directly to outcomes achieved or value delivered rather than time spent. 
• Subscription and retainer models offer another path forward, providing clients with ongoing access to expertise and capabilities for a fixed periodic fee. 

 The end of the billable hour also could bring change to the organizational structure of professional-services firms. Instead of maintaining a pyramid structure in which authority flows down from a small group of leaders at the top to a large group of employees at the bottom, these firms might become flatter and more flexible, consisting of a small core of senior experts who assemble teams and technology on an as-needed basis, depending on the client or project.