How Ready Is Your Consultancy for AI Productisation?
Nov 3, 2025
By Robert Streeter, CEO, TheAX.ai
Let’s be honest, consulting hasn’t really changed in seventy years.
We’ve scaled people, not expertise.
We’ve built frameworks, rolled out tools, and digitised documents, but the fundamental growth model has stayed the same: more projects means more people. And that worked fine when data was scarce, knowledge was hard to get, and clients were happy to pay for access to expertise.
But that world has gone.
AI, automation, and instant information have redrawn the boundaries of value. Transformation now happens in days, not months, and clients expect results at that same speed.
We’re entering a different era, and the firms that survive will be those that know how to productise their expertise (turning what they know into scalable systems that deliver measurable outcomes continuously).
What Clients Want Has Changed
Everywhere I look, I see the same pattern: clients aren’t paying for knowledge anymore - they can get that from ChatGPT.
What they do pay for is context (people who understand their world, bring specialist experience, and can deliver outcomes with measurable ROI). They want transparency. They want proof. They want to see the value being delivered - not just a deck of recommendations they’re left to implement on their own.
At the same time, AI is doing to consulting what spreadsheets did to accounting: automating the routine, accelerating the process, and changing what clients value.
If your firm is still scaling by hiring, not by systemising your IP, your model is already under strain. This isn’t a problem that’s five years away - it’s happening now.
The Traditional Model Is Broken
Consulting has always been labour-intensive. Every new client means a new proposal, new deliverables, and the same knowledge repackaged again and again by hand. Most firms have standard decks and proposal templates, but delivery still depends on individual consultants doing things their way.
That model has three in-built problems:
It doesn’t scale. Growth means more people, more cost, and more management.
It leaks value. Your IP lives in slides, heads, and hard drives - not systems.
It’s hard to prove impact. Once the final presentation is done, value fades fast.
AI has exposed those weaknesses brutally.
When a client can ask ChatGPT to generate a strategy framework in seconds, “knowing more” isn’t enough. You must deliver differently - through systems that make your expertise faster, smarter, and continuously valuable.
The Shift: From Expertise to System
This is the shift we’re helping drive at TheAX: moving from expertise delivered to expertise deployed.
Ask yourself this: what if you could scale your frameworks and IP, not just your people?
That’s the heart of AI Productisation - turning your firm’s knowledge into structured systems and workflows that deliver repeatable, measurable outcomes. It’s not about templating your work. It’s about building an infrastructure of expertise that learns, improves, and compounds in value over time.
When you do this, you stop reinventing the wheel with each client. You start delivering consistent, data-backed outcomes at scale (powered by systems like TheAX that capture and automate what makes your consultancy great).
That’s the foundation of the modern consulting firm.
Why Productisation Isn’t Optional
Three forces are making this transformation unavoidable:
AI is commoditising advice.
ChatGPT can replicate a lot of what consultants produce (analysis, planning, reporting) almost instantly. What it can’t replicate is your context: how your IP, experience, and insight apply to a specific client. Productisation lets you embed that context into systems that AI amplifies, not replaces.Clients demand proof.
Boards don’t buy consulting on reputation anymore. They expect data, visibility, and evidence of impact. Productised delivery makes value measurable.Linear growth doesn’t work.
Headcount-driven models are costly, risky, and slow. Codified expertise creates exponential reach - you can serve more clients without growing your payroll linearly.
The Whole Product Mindset
A lot of people still think “Productisation” means giving their services a name and a logo. That’s packaging, not Productisation.
True Productisation is an operating model shift.
We use something called the Whole Product Concept to explain it. It’s the idea that your “product” isn’t just the service - it’s the entire experience that enables a client to realise value.
Think of it like this:
Core Product: your proposition, frameworks, diagnostics, and expertise.
Expected Product: the consistency, repeatability, and delivery experience clients assume they will get.
Augmented Product: your brand, automation, data, and insight that make the experience continuously smarter.
Potential Product: innovation and evolution that sustain your edge.
When consultancies embrace this mindset, they move beyond selling hours or slides - they deliver outcome-ready systems clients can adopt, trust, and grow with.
And that’s when consulting becomes a scalable business, not just a busy one.
AI Productisation: The Bridge to the Future
Right now, we’re in the middle of the biggest change consulting has ever faced. AI Productisation is the bridge from where most firms are today to where the industry is going next.
When consultancies start codifying and digitising their expertise, automating parts of delivery, and embedding intelligence into operations, something remarkable happens:
IP becomes a living system, not a PowerPoint.
Data drives improvement, not just reporting.
Every project strengthens the next.
This isn’t evolution - it’s a rebirth. We’re moving from people-powered consulting to system-powered growth.
Why Acting Now Matters
The consultancies that embrace AI Productisation early will own the future. They’ll scale IP, not people - and build models that are faster, smarter, and infinitely more defensible.
Here’s what that looks like:
Scalability without headcount. Automate what’s repeatable; free people for what matters.
Predictable recurring revenue. Shift from projects to outcomes and subscriptions.
Data advantage. Every engagement enriches your IP and sharpens your next delivery.
Higher client retention. Clients stay connected through your platform — not just your consultants.
The Path Forward
AI isn’t killing consulting - it’s redefining it.
The next era isn’t about how many consultants you have; it’s about how intelligently you scale what they know.
At TheAX, we’re building the infrastructure for this shift - a platform that helps consultancies turn expertise into AI-powered products and, eventually, into Consultancy-as-a-Service models (now that's a story for another day…)
The firms that act now won’t just keep up with change. They’ll set the standard for how consulting operates in the AI age.
So, how ready is your consultancy for AI Productisation?
If you’re curious to find out, take our AX Axcelerate Assessment - it’ll show you where you are today, what’s holding you back, and where your biggest opportunities lie.
It’s the first step towards building the consultancy you’ll need for the decade ahead.
