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Elevation Insights – June 2026

Consulting insights from Elevation Learning

Welcome to the June 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.

June’s focus: AI in Practice.

AI is becoming part of everyday consulting and consulting-style work.

It is helping people research, summarise, structure ideas, draft content and reduce routine effort. But the important question is no longer whether consultants are using AI.

It is whether they are using it in ways that improve the quality of their thinking, strengthen client work and create better outcomes.

Used well, AI can create more space for analysis, challenge, judgement and client engagement.

Used uncritically, it can make early thinking look more complete than it really is.

The opportunity is not to hand consulting work over to AI. It is to use it deliberately, while strengthening the habits clients still value most: clear problem framing, sound judgement, commercial awareness, confidentiality and accountability.

This Month at a Glance

Focus: AI in Practice – moving beyond access to tools and towards confident, responsible use in real consulting work.

Why it matters: AI can save time. The bigger opportunity is to improve how work is framed, tested and turned into action.

Do this: Treat AI as part of the consulting workflow. Be clear about the task, provide the right context, challenge the output and remain accountable for the recommendation.

The consulting question is shifting from:

“How can AI help me do this task faster?”

to

“How might AI help me improve the work and the value it creates for the client?”

Here are the practical moves we recommend – built for real projects, client conversations and development challenges.

Capability Spotlight

From Faster Tasks to Better Consulting Work

Much of the conversation about AI in consulting is about speed.

Faster research. Quicker drafts. Less time summarising notes. Better formatted slides.

All useful.

Many consultants are already using AI for the work around the work: drafting, structuring ideas, improving clarity and summarising information.

But the bigger opportunity is to rethink the workflow around the task.

Take information gathering. Traditionally, a consultant collects material, reviews it, identifies themes and then forms hypotheses. With AI, gathering, synthesis, challenge and hypothesis-testing can happen more iteratively.

That changes where the consultant adds value.

The role shifts from processing information towards shaping the enquiry, testing outputs, deciding what matters and applying judgement in the client context.

AI can produce a polished, plausible answer at speed. But plausible is not the same as right.

The value comes from using AI to clarify the real problem, spot gaps in evidence, test assumptions, explore alternatives and help clients make better decisions.

A useful question:

“Are we using AI to complete this task faster, or to improve the way the work is done?”

Elevation Learning perspective

AI is making it easier to produce a first draft. It is not making it easier to produce trusted consulting work.

Clients will continue to value the things AI cannot own: understanding the real issue behind the brief, reading the stakeholder landscape, spotting the question that has not been asked, making difficult trade-offs and helping people commit to action.

The consultants who stand out will not simply be the quickest users of AI. They will be the ones who use it to make their work more specific, more rigorous and more useful to the client.

AI changes the tools. It does not remove the need for consulting judgement.

Model of the Month

The 6A Model for using AI in Consulting

A practical way to use AI without handing over the thinking. Our refined six-step model:

  • Aim – Define the client issue, consulting purpose and intended outcome.
  • Ask – Use AI to generate questions, ideas, structures, summaries, options or first drafts.
  • Assess – Challenge the logic, assumptions, evidence, risks and missing perspectives.
  • Adapt – Make the work specific to the client context, stakeholders, priorities and commercial reality.
  • Assure – Check accuracy, confidentiality, source quality, client permissions and professional standards.
  • Act – Use the work to support a clearer decision, stronger recommendation or more effective client action.

Why it matters

A good AI-supported workflow should make it easier to explain:

  • the outcome it is intended to improve;
  • the assumptions and evidence behind it;
  • the checks applied before it is used;
  • who remains accountable;
  • how value will be measured.

A practical reset question:

“Have we used AI to support better consulting judgement and action?”

If the answer is unclear, the work probably needs more assessment, adaptation or assurance before it is used.

From Elevation Learning

This month on LinkedIn

Across June, our LinkedIn posts explored themes around AI in Practice:

Our AI in Practice Survey

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our short survey on the reality of AI in consulting.

The survey explores how AI is being used, where it is helping and what support would help people use it more effectively and responsibly.

We are continuing to gather views from consultants, business partners and professionals involved in consulting-style work. The survey takes less than two minutes to complete.

We will share the findings in July.

Survey link: https://tinyurl.com/wdux4675

Coming next month

July focus: AI in Practice – what the responses reveal.

Next month, we will share the findings from our AI in Practice survey.

We will explore what the responses reveal about how consultants are using AI, where it is adding value, where confidence or controls are still developing, and what practical support people need to help AI become a more confident, responsible and useful part of consulting practice.

What We’re Noticing in Client Work

Three questions emerging from the AI in Practice conversation.

  1. Are people using AI to speed up tasks, or improve the work?
  • Why it matters: AI can reduce effort in research, drafting and summarising. But faster output is not always better output. The opportunity is to use it to clarify problems, test assumptions, strengthen recommendations and prepare for better client conversations.
  • What to try next: Include AI use in project reviews and coaching conversations. Ask not only what tool was used, but what difference it made.
  • A useful question: “What decision, conversation or action will this AI-supported work improve?”
  1. Are people being given tools, or support to use them well?
  • Why it matters: Access does not automatically create capability. Consultants need practical guidance on framing tasks, protecting confidential information, assessing quality, verifying outputs and adapting work for clients.
  • What to try next: Build AI practice into onboarding, project standards, quality reviews and manager coaching.
  • A useful test: “Are we developing confident AI practice, or simply providing access to AI tools?”
  1. Are we measuring adoption, or value?
  • Why it matters: It is easy to measure tool use. It is more useful to understand whether AI is improving consulting work or client outcomes. Look for evidence such as time released for higher-value work, better quality, faster insight, stronger engagement, reduced rework or more effective implementation.
  • What to try next: For a small number of common tasks, agree what “better” looks like before expanding AI use.
  • A useful question: “What will be different for the client, team or project if this use of AI is successful?”

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 prepared, researched, structured, delivered and reviewed.

But use remains uneven.

Some consultants are using AI daily. Others are experimenting selectively. Some have clear guidance and support; others are working it out individually, often balancing curiosity with concerns about confidentiality, quality and client expectations.

That is why the next stage of capability-building matters.

The challenge is not simply to increase AI use. It is to help people use it with purpose, confidence and appropriate controls – so that it strengthens consulting work rather than simply speeding up output.

Dates for Your Diary

Elevation Learning events

Developing Your Core Consulting Skills (DYCCS) – in partnership with Bayes Business School (in-person, London)

  • 13–15 October 2026 for new-to-role consultants, internal consultants, and client-facing specialists building core consulting craft.

Industry events

  •  CMCE: 2026 Urwick Lecture: Let Ethics Be Your Moral Compass – Zoom, 2 July 2026, 9:00–10:00am. For consultants, leaders, and advisers interested in ethical behaviour and a practical framework for questioning ethical decisions.
  • MCA Annual Industry Report 2026 Launch Event, PwC London – 7 July 2026, 12:00 – 2:30pm. Latest insights and discussion on the UK consulting sector.
  • MCA Awards 2026 Ceremony and Dinner – Grosvenor House, London – 12 October 2026, 6:30 – 11:00pm. One of the major UK consulting profession events, celebrating consulting impact, client work, and individual achievement.

We want to hear from you!

How is AI changing the way you work as a consultant?

Is it mainly helping you save time, or is it changing how you frame problems, test ideas and create value for clients?

We are still collecting responses to our short AI in Practice survey. We will share the findings in July.

Thank you for reading June’s edition of Elevation Insights.

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