By Robert Streeter, CEO of TheAX

For the last two years, the consulting industry has been unusually aligned on one thing: the traditional consulting model is no longer sufficient on its own for an AI age. But are not aligned yet on what comes next as a concrete solution to the challenge being faced. This lack of concrete solutions is about to change…

Across firms of all sizes, the same themes keep resurfacing: 

• A shift away from billable hours towards outcomes and measurable value 

• A push to productise expertise through frameworks, assessments, and diagnostics 

• The rapid adoption of AI, accelerating delivery while raising questions about differentiation 

• Growing interest in subscription and retainer models 

• Increasing client demand for continuous insight, benchmarking, and visibility of progress — not static reports at the end of a project 

The direction of travel is clear.  What has been missing is the how. 

Without concrete solutions that enable these outcomes in practice, the conversation remains just that - words and wish lists. Most industry discussion has focused on what should change, without addressing how consultancies actually make this transition without breaking their delivery model, diluting their IP, or introducing unsustainable complexity. 

That gap exists because this is not a tooling problem. 
It is an operating-model problem. 

Naming the Shift: Consultancy-as-a-Service (CaaS) 

At TheAX, we use the term Consultancy-as-a-Service (CaaS) to describe the operating model the industry has been circling without fully articulating. 

The parallel is deliberate. Just as the software industry evolved from on-premise solutions delivered through large, expensive, episodic projects to SaaS models delivering continuous value, consulting is undergoing the same structural shift. 

But let’s be clear. 

CaaS is not “consulting with AI”. 
It is not a rebranded retainer. 
And it is not simply productised consulting. 

On their own, these do not address the concrete structural changes consultancies must make. 

CaaS is the platformisation of consultancy itself - an operating model where expertise is delivered through systems, insight is continuous rather than episodic, outcomes are measured over time, and revenue becomes recurring because value is recurring. 

Naming this matters. Once you name it, you can design fop it. 

What We Built First at TheAX: The Foundations (2025) 

Throughout 2025, our focus at TheAX has been deliberately foundational. 

Rather than rushing to declare Consultancy-as-a-Service as a finished solution, we concentrated on building the capabilities it depends on - the work most consultancies still do manually today. This required deep technical, AI, and design innovation to get right, and that is where we have invested our effort. 

In practice, this has meant enabling consultancies to: 

• capture and structure their knowledge into AI-enabled assets 

• build maturity models, assessments, and diagnostics in hours rather than months 

• standardise delivery through repeatable workflows 

• generate insights, benchmarks, and roadmaps automatically 

• embed governance and IP protection as scale increases 

In short, we focused on automating with AI how consultancies actually operate today. 

Because without that foundation, Consultancy-as-a-Service (the end-game) remains theoretical. 

By the end of 2025, this operating base is in place in TheAX Platform. What comes next fundamentally changes what is possible in consulting — and how consultancies can operate commercially. 

What Changes in Q1 2026: CaaS Comes Together 

Q1 2026 is the point where everything we have been planning, testing, and building starts to connect. 

This is when productised IP, unified data, automation, and AI move beyond internal efficiency and into the client experience itself. 

Consulting delivery becomes: 

• continuous rather than episodic 

• collaborative rather than one-way 

• data-led rather than report-driven 

• platform-based rather than project-based 

This is Consultancy-as-a-Service (CaaS) in practice. 

I stress here, this is not as an aspiration - but a working model TheAX is delivering that creates a new experience in Q1 2026 that your clients can buy into, and renew against on a recurring basis. A model that moves consultancies beyond day-rate and margin pressure, and opens up entirely new commercial opportunities through scalable, recurring revenue. 

The Announcement: The CaaS Client Portals Founding Cohort 

To bring this to market properly, we are launching a Founding Cohort for TheAX Client Portals. 

This is not a beta programme. It is a strategic opportunity. 

TheAX Client Portals are the next connective layer of CaaS: 

• they give clients secure, ongoing access to insights and benchmarks 

• they enable controlled self-serve assessments 

• they support consultancies with new continuous improvement and subscription-led engagement opportunities

• they turn productised consulting into an always-on service 

We are forming a single cohort of up to 10 consultancies to shape this capability and launch it with real clients in Q1 2026. 

Cohort members will receive early access, enhanced usage allowances throughout 2026, direct influence over how Consultancy-as-a-Service is delivered, and (critically) time to embed this model commercially before it becomes mainstream. 

That time advantage matters in an accelerated world and a market rushing to be first to fully leverage AI for commercial advantage. 

From Conversation to Commitment 

For the last two years, the consulting industry has been talking about its future. 

In Q1 2026, that future becomes operational. The Founding CaaS Cohort is an opportunity to move from discussion about the impact of AI to delivery of concrete solutions - to help define how Consultancy-as-a-Service is experienced by clients, not just described in theory. 

If your firm is serious about how it operates, scales, and differentiates in 2026 and beyond, this is the moment to engage. 

This is where Consultancy-as-a-Service stops being talked about in conceptual terms - and starts being delivered as a practical business reality. 

If you would like to learn more, email me robert@theax.ai