The best reinvention consultants can make in the AI era is to their pricing model

Consultants are having an personality crisis.

AI's presence has raised questions astir the worth consultants provide. And while group person ever questioned what consultants really do, the AI era has magnified the issue.

Consultants are rebranding themselves and overhauling really they transportation their services to clients. It's led to the emergence of the "AI-native" consultant, wherever the tech sits astatine the halfway of everything they do, writes BI's Polly Thompson.

From cutting awesome business deals pinch AI companies to leaning into tech-driven projects and distant from generalist work, it's a large displacement for a trillion-dollar industry.

But conscionable saying you're AI autochthonal doesn't make it so. Polly said to insiders astir whether the AI capabilities and acquisition consultants tout are much bark than bite.

Consultants aren't the only ones spinning an AI narrative. There's been a wide displacement to reposition companies arsenic AI-related. My workfellow Melia Robinson noticed startups' inclination to slap "AI" connected the backmost of their names.

Consultants could beryllium their AI abilities by rethinking their pricing.

After all, if you are getting important benefits from leveraging AI, shouldn't that alteration the measurement you complaint clients?

Billable hours and fixed-fee arrangements are 2 ways consultants person often been paid. Neither format is good suited to the AI era.

For consultants, billable hours go a problem erstwhile AI enables you to do the activity successful half the time. For clients, fixed-fee arrangements mean paying a group value moreover erstwhile AI's ROI isn't clear-cut.

One solution is outcome-based pricing. A customer typically pays an upfront fee, pinch the remaining compensation contingent connected a group of agreed-upon goals the task must meet.

In short, clients want their consultants to have immoderate tegument successful the game. (It's not conscionable axenic consultants facing this pressure. The consulting arms of tech giants are getting akin requests.)

The interest building does airs a consequence for consultants since they can't power extracurricular factors that mightiness effect the occurrence of a project. But pinch AI calling immoderate of their worth into question, they mightiness not person overmuch of a choice.

And aft all, they're AI native. Right?