Do I need an AI consultant?

If you're asking, you probably already know something isn't working. You've bought the licences. A few people are getting value. Nothing has changed about how the business runs.

So you look for somebody who can tell you what to do.

What you are paying a consultant for

Strip it back and a good consultant does four things:

1. Finds out how your business actually works. Interviews, workshops, reading your reports.
2. Works out where the time and money go.
3. Recommends what to change first.
4. Sometimes builds it, usually as a second, larger project.

The first step is the expensive one. It takes weeks, it covers a handful of people, and it is out of date the month they leave. Everything after it is only as good as that first picture.

What Leo does instead

	A team of consultants	Leo
Getting started	Weeks of workshops	Working from your first conversation
Who it learns from	A handful of people, once	Everyone, and your tools, every day
What you get	A slide deck	A living picture, and a plan
The build	A second project	Offered when you say go
When they finish	The knowledge leaves	It keeps learning

Leo also brings something a consultant can't: it doesn't arrive with an answer. It holds no view about how your industry should run. You supply the standard. Leo brings consistency and arithmetic.

When you still want a person

Be honest with yourself about this part.

• When the hard part is people. If two teams won't agree, a picture of the disagreement helps, but somebody has to lead the conversation.
• When the decision is strategic. Leo will show you the trade off and who gains or loses. It won't choose for you, and it shouldn't.
• When you want somebody accountable. A person whose name is on the outcome.

A good adviser with Leo beside them is far more useful than either alone. Most of their time stops going on finding out, and goes on deciding.

The short answer

You need what a consultant produces. You may not need the consultant to produce it.