Even as the power of AI technologies grows, getting business value from AI-enabled projects still eludes most firms. AI adoption requires outcome-based design and a multidisciplinary approach. This challenges traditional service models.

Service Providers Are Both Shaping AI And Being Transformed By It

When we assessed AI consultancies both globally and in Asia Pacific for our Forrester Wave™ evaluations, we found that providers are evolving their traditional service models to help customers transform their businesses with AI.

AI is by nature a learning system, which forces a continuous development cycle to advance AI’s business contribution. AI projects require broad expertise beyond tech development and deployment due to the need for business change management. Building trust in automated decisions is essential to arrive at an AI that is accepted by customers and employees. These forces are impelling service providers to transform themselves to meet client needs and become experts in a new form of intelligent technology.

Leading AI Consultancies Excel At Moving AI From Pilot To Production

Successful AI service providers are gravitating toward a service model built on a partner approach. This model is characterized by:

  • A clear objective and business outcome to fulfill business ambitions and return-on-investment expectations.
  • A blend of technology and business expertise to tie AI tightly to a business process or as a platform for a new business model.
  • A pilot-to-production methodology to address challenges of scaling data, infrastructure, processes, orchestration, resources, skills, and business change management.
  • A technology-agnostic approach with added business expertise to select the best technology for the job and allow the creating of specialist AI capabilities and content.
  • A modern approach to talent sourcing and development with fresh ideas for sourcing, mentoring, training, and incentivizing talent inside and outside of their organization.
  • Access to a wider ecosystem of services and capabilities to tap a wide range of ideas, innovation, and skills.
  • A flexible approach to business and contracts in a model that fully caters to clients’ approaches to AI.

With this approach, AI consultancy partners have eased the path to AI success significantly, and I am expecting this model to gain additional momentum in 2020.

If you are looking to engage a consultancy for your AI initiative, be sure to understand their service model and discuss their approach in detail. The above can help you to guide the discussion.

To understand more about how consultancies are reinventing their service model for AI, read the Forrester report “Consultancies Are Reinventing Their Service Model For AI.”

If you’d like to discuss how this affects you and your organization, please don’t hesitate to schedule an inquiry call with me.

If you are a vendor or service provider for AI, please do schedule a briefing with me.