Ai Winners Are Not Using More Ai. They Are Redesigning Their Workflow
The latest Ai headlines for consulting firms suggest the market is moving beyond novelty and into a harder phase where agentic capability, cyber risk, and enterprise control matter more than demo magic.
There is a lot of AI news around at the moment, which makes it hard to tell which developments actually matter for consultants. Here are a few recent items that caught my attention and are worth noting, along with the Consultant Café take on each.
Stories to cover in this edition
1. AI for strategy? Good luck deciphering the buzzword ‘trendslop’ (Australian Financial Review)
The article: Researchers from the University of Sydney found that generative AI struggles to replace the business judgment of experienced strategy advisers. The article argues that AI is poor at strategy because it tends to produce polished, trend-driven recommendations rather than real strategic choices. Across seven major models, researchers found the same patterns repeating: generic advice, bias toward popular ideas, and a tendency to recommend both options instead of making a clear trade-off.
Its core point is that AI reflects the average logic of the internet, not the judgment needed for context-specific strategy. It can help generate options and critique ideas, but human strategists still have the edge when it comes to choosing a direction that is coherent, differentiated, and grounded in reality.
Consultant Café take: AI is not taking consultant jobs yet. The finding tells us what AI can't do. Use AI to widen the option set, test assumptions, and stress your thinking. Do not let it make the call. AI can help with divergence. Strategy still needs human convergence. Or more bluntly: AI can draft a strategy-shaped document. It still cannot reliably make a strategy.
