Good Business Lab

Their core offering — 'analyzing data using AI-driven methods to uncover insights that enhance worker wellbeing and productivity' — is now something Claude does between coffee breaks, without the six-month ethnographic study, the PhD advisory team, or the $200K consulting engagement that funds their Colombia office.

Program design, impact measurement, stakeholder coalition building — the entire development consulting value chain is getting absorbed into AI strategy workflows. ChatGPT already writes better RCT protocols than most NGO researchers, and it doesn't need three months in Bangalore to 'understand local context.'

Their moat was supposed to be academic rigor plus field execution — the rare combination of Michigan PhD credentials with actual factory floor credibility. But rigor becomes a liability when speed matters more than statistical significance, and 'lived experience' becomes a nice-to-have when AI can synthesize worker sentiment from Glassdoor at scale.

They mention 'AI-driven methods' exactly once on their entire website — buried in the service description like a footnote, not like the existential restructuring that's already eating their consulting category from both ends.

Worker wellbeing matters more than ever — the irony is that the organizations implementing it no longer need human consultants to figure out how. AI doesn't just optimize the programs GBL designs; it eliminates the question that created the consulting need in the first place.