- Clients
- CMI Qualification Learners
Welcome to the May edition of Elevation Insights – curated consulting capability insights from Elevation Learning, designed for learning leaders and consultants who want practical moves that lift performance in the real world.
May’s focus: Consulting with AI.
AI is raising the standard for consulting.
Clients increasingly expect consulting work to be sharper, faster, more evidence-based and more practical. AI is also becoming part of how consulting work gets done – from proposals, workshops and analysis to synthesis, communication, implementation planning and delivery.
Used well, it can help teams move more quickly from information to insight, and from insight to action.
But speed is not the same as value.
The real value comes from combining AI capability with the consulting judgement clients trust: framing the right problem, reading the client context, knowing what evidence matters, managing risk, turning recommendations into action, and helping people change how they work.
That is where consulting capability becomes more important, not less.
Focus: Consulting with AI – using AI with judgement, confidence and control.
Why it matters: AI can help consultants work faster. But faster output is not the same as better consulting. The risks are real: polished but generic work, weak assumptions, inconsistent use, quality issues, data risk, and less practice building the judgement consultants need.
Do this: Use AI deliberately to strengthen the fundamentals – problem framing, structure, synthesis, judgement, communication, client relevance, adoption and action.
The consulting question is shifting from:
“Are we using AI?”
to
“Where is AI improving the quality, speed, confidence or commercial value of our work?”
Here are the practical moves we recommend – built for real projects, client conversations and development challenges.
Many consultants are learning how to use AI tools. Fewer are asking how AI can help them become better consultants.
AI can summarise a document, draft a slide, analyse interview notes, structure a workshop or generate a first version of a project plan. All useful. But the bigger opportunity is better thinking, not simply faster output.
For consultants, AI has the potential to strengthen the whole consulting workflow – from problem framing to insight, from insight to recommendation, and from recommendation to client action.
That means asking better questions:
The value is not in handing over the thinking to AI. It is in using AI to sharpen the thinking consultants are responsible for.
Why it matters
The AI conversation in consulting is noisy.
Copilots. Productivity. Automation. Agentic AI. AI governance. Transformation.
But the real test is whether consultants can make AI useful for the client in front of them.
Generic AI messages will not be enough. Consultants need to connect AI to the client’s real situation: the problem they are trying to solve, the workflow they want to improve, the risks they need to manage, the skills people need, and the value they want to create.
As routine research, drafting and analysis become easier to accelerate, clients will place greater value on specificity, sector understanding, implementation confidence, judgement and measurable outcomes.
The consultants who stand out will not be those who use the most AI language. They will be those who turn AI from a noisy topic into something useful, credible and valuable for the client.
The quickest test we know
If AI has helped create the work, a consultant should be able to explain:
A reset question you can use on almost any project:
“Are we using AI to produce something faster, or to help the client think, decide and act better?”
AI will make average consulting easier to produce.
And excellent consulting harder to fake.
Clients will become less impressed by polished but generic output – especially when they can increasingly produce some of it themselves.
What matters is whether the consultant’s work is specific, grounded, commercially useful and helps clients make better decisions or take better action.
Consultants still need to ask the question AI did not know to ask, spot the assumption hidden in the analysis, read the politics in the room, connect the data to the decision, help leaders make difficult trade-offs, and turn recommendations into action.
That is the craft of consulting.
AI changes the tools, but it does not remove the need for judgement, empathy, facilitation, synthesis, ethics and commercial instinct.
The future will belong to consultants who use AI to make their work sharper, more useful and more trusted.
AI is most useful when it is part of a disciplined consulting workflow.
This model helps consultants use AI without handing over the thinking. It gives teams a practical way to move from AI output to consulting value.
To use AI well, move through six steps:
Why it matters
AI can produce generic work if the task is poorly framed, weak logic if the output is not challenged, and trust risk if the work is not validated before it goes further.
The point is not to make AI use complicated. It is to make it intentional, safe and useful.
Before using AI-supported work, ask five questions:
A practical reset question:
“Where are we in the AI judgement loop, and what still needs human judgement before this is client-ready?”
If the answer is unclear, the work probably needs more challenge, adaptation or validation before it is used.
Across May, our LinkedIn posts explored eight connected themes around Consulting with AI:
Coming next month
June focus: AI in Practice – usage, value and support.
Next month, we move from the AI conversation to the AI reality.
We will launch a short survey exploring how consultants and professionals involved in consulting work are using AI day to day: which tools they use, where AI is helping, what barriers are getting in the way, and what support would help them use AI more effectively.
The survey takes less than two minutes to complete, and we will share key insights afterwards.
Look out for the survey in June – and please share your view.
Three patterns we’ve seen in our client conversations – and one practical move for each.
What we’re noticing about AI in consulting
AI is no longer a side conversation in consulting. It is becoming part of how work is researched, structured, delivered and reviewed.
But the pattern we are seeing is uneven. Some consultants are using AI daily. Others are experimenting cautiously. Some teams have clear guidance; others are working it out individually.
That is why next month’s survey matters. We want to understand where AI is helping, where confidence is still developing, and what support consultants need to use it safely, effectively and commercially.
Elevation Learning events
Developing Your Core Consulting Skills (DYCCS) – in partnership with Bayes Business School (in-person, London)
Industry events
Where is AI helping you deliver better consulting – and where is human judgement still most important?
Next month, we will launch a short survey to explore what is happening in practice: how consultants are using AI, where it is helping, and where better guidance, training or support is needed.
Look out for the survey link in June – and please share your view.
Thank you for reading May’s edition of Elevation Insights.
