AI Strategy Consulting: What a real strategy looks like versus a slide deck.
Many companies have an AI strategy. Most have a PDF sitting on the company server that nobody opens anymore. That is not the same thing.
The slide deck looks like a strategy. It is not one.
What the slide deck delivers: 6-month analysis phase for all departments. Abstract buzzwords like synergies and disruption. Costs six figures before anyone lifts a finger. Focus on selecting the most expensive software.
What the real strategy delivers: 2 weeks to the first working prototype. Clear metrics like we save 10 hours of email triage per week. Starts small, proves itself in daily work and scales from there. Focus on unconventional solutions using what is already there.
The slide deck tries to predict the future five years ahead. With AI that is completely impossible because the technology shifts every few months. Real AI strategy consulting defines a narrow, concrete use case and tests it immediately. If it does not work, it gets dropped. Build, test, learn.
Three signs that you have a slide deck, not a strategy.
We see these situations in almost every company that comes to us.
AI sits with the IT department
IT builds the socket but does not decide which device gets plugged in. AI belongs in the hands of the people who work at the front line every day: customer service, sales, operations. Locking AI inside the IT department gets you demos but no value creation.
The result: Impressive presentations, zero change in daily work.
Shadow AI is growing unchecked
Employees are secretly typing company data into personal ChatGPT accounts. Not to annoy anyone, but because the internal processes are so painfully slow that they do not know any other way to help themselves. Shadow AI is not a compliance problem. It is a cry for help.
The result: Data privacy risks and a clear signal that the official strategy is not working.
The proof of concept takes six months
That is not an AI rollout, that is a SAP project from the 90s. Those who spend six months writing concepts get overtaken by reality and the competition. First results need to be visible in weeks, not quarters.
The result: Momentum is lost, scepticism grows, budget is gone.
AI is not magic dust for broken processes.
If the CRM is a mess and the workflows are from 2010, AI will not fix that. Sticking AI onto organisational chaos gets you highly automated rubbish at the speed of light.
On top of that: the most expensive AI strategy is the one where you wait until the technology is finally mature. The technology will never be finished. Those who wait lose. Those who start today build experience that no slide deck can replace.
And something else we see repeatedly: companies pick the biggest problem in the business as their first AI use case. That is the wrong instinct. The biggest problem is usually the most complex, the most politically charged, and the one with the most dependencies. The best first step is the most annoying small process that everyone hates, that happens every day, and where success is immediately visible.
Good AI strategy consulting leaves no PDF. It leaves a team that needs two fewer hours for routine work on Monday mornings.
We do not start with a strategy. We start with a question: what annoys your team the most every day?
Not the biggest problem, not the most expensive, not the most prestigious. The most annoying. The process everyone hates, everyone knows, and where it is immediately obvious when it no longer has to happen manually.
Then we test. Not six months. Not from a concept document. But in two weeks with a first working prototype. If it works, it gets expanded. If not, it gets dropped and the next use case comes in.
That is AI strategy consulting we stand behind: concrete, fast, measurable. At the end, the IT department has not just installed a new tool. Sales saves an hour every day, support handles 40% fewer tickets manually, and the finance team knows on Monday morning what was still open on Friday evening.
No strategy project. Three use cases. Eight weeks.
A company comes to us with the brief to develop an AI strategy. We politely decline and suggest instead: let us spend two weeks finding out which use case removes the most pain.
Week one: five interviews with people from operations, sales and support. Week two: three use cases identified, one immediately actionable. Email triage in support, two hours of manual work daily for four employees.
- First prototype live after two weeks
- 10 hours of manual email work per week saved
- Second use case started: quote templates in sales
- Third use case in planning: automated reporting
- No strategy paper, no presentation, no external consultant needed anymore
- Team can now identify and implement further use cases themselves
“The most expensive AI strategy is the one where you wait until the technology is finally mature.”
What you usually ask us about AI strategy.
NO STRATEGY. NO SLIDE DECK. JUST THE FIRST WORKING USE CASE.
Tell us briefly what annoys your team every day, we will tell you in one conversation whether AI can help and how quickly.