Your business needs AI strategy support. You've seen the pitches. They all promise transformation. They all have frameworks. Most of them are interchangeable. How do you actually choose?
The consulting market for AI is noisy. There are generalist consultancies that do AI the same way they do digital transformation. There are big tech vendors who call themselves consultants. There are boutiques. There are fractional executives. They can't all be good. Most of them aren't right for you.
What actually matters when choosing a consulting partner:
Sector experience. This is non-negotiable. Insurance is not financial services is not legal. The regulatory landscape is different. The competitive dynamics are different. The operational constraints are different. A consultant who understands your sector can translate between your business language and AI language. A generalist has to learn your sector from scratch, which means you're paying for education, not expertise.
Ask directly: "How many businesses like mine have you worked with?" If they say "we've done work in insurance," ask for a reference in a similar-sized insurance business. Ask what they learned. A good consultant can tell you three things that surprised them about your sector.
Senior delivery. This matters more than you think. The initial strategy engagement often gets staffed with promising 30-somethings fresh from big tech. That's fine for some work. But when you're making multi-million pound decisions about technology direction, you need someone who's actually *lived* through technology transformations. You need someone who can spot what your board will actually buy into, and what will collapse under the weight of reality.
Ask who will actually be in your meetings. If it's a partner at the consulting firm, great. If it's a "subject matter expert" who reports to a partner who reports to a director, that's a warning flag. You want the senior person in the room, not a delegation.
Governance capability. Most consultants talk about AI governance like it's a checkbox. "You'll need a governance framework. Here's our RACI matrix." Real governance is harder. It's about decision-making under uncertainty. It's about knowing when to push back on business demand. It's about building a structure where smart people can move fast *and* regulators are satisfied.
Ask: "Walk me through how you'd set up governance for my business." A good answer includes: who owns what decision, what escalation looks like, how you measure whether governance is working, what happens when the model breaks. A generic answer tells you they haven't thought about it.
Reference clients and evidence of outcomes. Testimonials are nice. Evidence that clients actually used your recommendations and got results is better. Ask your consultant: "Can I speak to a client you worked with two years ago? I want to know whether they followed through on your recommendations and whether it worked."
That question is uncomfortable for consultants who oversell. Good consultants have a list of clients who will honestly tell you: "They helped us avoid three major mistakes and speed up our vendor selection process." That's credible.
Red flags in consulting pitches:
Vendor-led recommendations. If a consulting partner keeps steering you towards a particular technology or vendor, you need to understand why. Is it because that vendor is actually the right tool for your problem, or because the consultant gets a commercial arrangement with that vendor? This is more common than you'd think. The consultancy makes money whether you succeed or not. The vendor makes money if you buy. Whose incentives are aligned with yours?
Ask directly: "Do you have a commercial relationship with any of the vendors you're recommending?" If the answer is yes, that doesn't automatically disqualify them — but you need to weight that information.
Junior-heavy teams. Consulting firms love proposing a team with one senior person and five junior consultants. It's profitable for them. It's expensive for you because you're paying for people who don't yet know your sector. If a proposal says "led by Partner X, supported by a team of analysts," ask for their CVs. Work experience matters.
No measurement framework. A good consulting partner will say: "Here's how we'll measure whether this engagement has been successful." Bad ones will sell you a 10-week strategy programme with no clear success criteria. Strategy work is valuable, but it has to be tethered to outcomes: Are we shipping faster? Are we making better decisions? Are we avoiding disasters?
Asking the right questions before you engage:
"Can you describe your approach to AI strategy in our sector specifically?" A good answer is detailed and specific. It acknowledges constraints in your industry. It shows they've worked through similar problems. A generic answer that sounds like it applies to any sector is a warning flag.
"How do you handle situations where your recommendation conflicts with what the business is asking for?" A good consultant will tell you about a time they pushed back on a plan they thought was wrong. They should be comfortable being the voice of reason, not just the person who rubber-stamps what leadership wants.
"What does success look like at the end of your engagement?" You should be able to point to something tangible: a prioritised investment roadmap, a governance framework that's actually in use, a vendor selection that's been validated, a set of quick wins that have started delivering value.
"Who will we actually be working with?" Get names. Get their background. If most of the team is under 3 years' experience, question whether that's right for your complexity.
Evaluating proposals:
A good proposal is specific to your business. It acknowledges the constraints you've mentioned. It includes a clear scope, a realistic timeline, a named team with relevant experience, and success criteria you can measure.
A bad proposal is generic. It could apply to any company. It makes promises without evidence. It has a long list of deliverables and an unclear connection to your business outcomes.
A proposal that spends more time talking about the consulting firm's credentials than about your specific situation is selling consulting, not solving your problem.
The partnership that works:
The best consulting engagements are partnerships where you're not waiting for consultants to tell you what to do. You're working *with* them. They bring pattern recognition from other sectors and businesses. You bring intimate knowledge of your constraints and your culture. Together, you move faster and make better decisions.
Get in touch to talk about whether an AI consulting partnership would help you move forward.