By 2026, the worldwide AI market is anticipated to reach $309.6 billion with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 39.7%.

What is AI consulting?

With the help of AI engineers and specialists, corporate organizations from a variety of sectors may implement AI applications to further their objectives. This requires a number of steps and is a lengthy procedure, so it is easier said than done. 

The following are some of the duties and obligations that AI consulting firms have:

• Assisting companies in making use of their resources 
• Figuring out how to save expenses without sacrificing quality 
• Creating, incorporating, modifying, and upkeep of AI applications 
• Educating staff on how to utilize tools efficiently for daily tasks, creating long-term plans for the company's growth and expansion, etc.

1- Creating a strategy

How ought the customer to apply AI? It's important to comprehend the client's strategy, the possibilities and problems the business faces, and the client's data and analytics capabilities. A consultant can determine which of these, along with knowledge of cutting-edge AI, are the most crucial AI efforts for the business.

Revisions to a company's overarching strategy are also necessary in light of these activities. For instance, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) businesses make a sizable profit by handling invoicing for other businesses. Since AI technology can manage invoice automation, these services' revenues are at risk.

A provider of translation services is another illustration. To ensure that their businesses are still operating in 5–10 years when Google Translate gets human-level translation skills, those organizations must make significant adjustments to their operations. Strategic planning sessions that look five to ten years into the future are useful for assisting leaders in determining how their business has to start altering right away.

Following these phases, artificial intelligence consulting services develop their strategies:

• Analyzing the company's strategy and utilizing tools like process mining will help you determine the present state of your business.

• Assembling a portfolio of viable AI initiatives: this process entails figuring out the business's problems and how AI may help.
• Estimating a project's worth: The majority of AI initiatives fall short of their goals. AI consulting companies assist organizations in project value estimation so that they don't invest more money than is necessary.
• AI consultants should be aware of the capabilities and limits of each technology in the sector when selecting AI solutions and data sets to feed machine learning models. Consultants select the appropriate AI technology and necessary data training sets for implementation based on business goals.
• Pilot project launches- Consultants assist in the launch of preliminary small-scale ventures to demonstrate the viability of the concept.
• Finding scaling problems and developing a solution: Artificial intelligence consultants give firms a plan for AI scaling objectives after reviewing the outcomes of pilot projects.

2- Due Diligence

Even if it is a strategy initiative, due diligence is a unique one. Since success variables in AI are distinct from those in other sectors, it is essential to have a solid understanding of the AI market in order to do effective due diligence. Solon and other consulting firms with a strong track record in due diligence are making investments to get a foothold in this developing sector.

The following reasons set evaluating the commercial success of an AI solution apart from other software:

A deep-learning based AI solution must have more or better labeled data than rivals in order to be superior. Any software becomes better as developers gain knowledge from user behavior. But in the case of AI, more data makes the model predictions more accurate, which is unusual.

Evaluation of engineering teams differs from evaluation of data science teams. For data science teams, as opposed to more traditional software engineering teams, academic credentials may be more crucial.

As a result, businesses are spending money on AI-specific due diligence tools. These include comprehending and assessing data sources pertinent to AI models, developing quick strategies to compare the products of various AI vendors, and becoming familiar with academic and professional qualifications in the field of AI.

3-Application

Numerous initiatives will be the outcome of the approach. Planning, choosing a vendor if necessary, project management, development, improving the business processes affected by the project, change management, and other activities should all be included in the implementation phase.

Like with any consulting business, consultants may perform some or all of the work. Or, implementation can be done internally, which is what happens most often. However, starting with consultants can assist the customer advance more quickly, for instance, if the client lacks the technological expertise to accomplish critical objectives. Please keep in mind, too, that hiring consultants exclusively to handle implementation will probably end up costing more in the long run than carrying out those tasks in-house.

4- Training 

Consulting projects ought to enhance the client's culture and capabilities. This is extremely important in the competitive field of AI. Client teams for AI consulting projects must be competent and aware about the technology they will be working on. Training materials must be thoroughly organized and documented, and a knowledge transfer method must be in place.

How should you pick an AI consultant?

There are obviously numerous considerations when choosing a firm to work with, but the following are the three most important ones:

Is it actually required? 

You should begin by asking that question. Numerous publications outline the benefits that could result from putting the solution into practice, but will there be a quick payoff? You should enquire about your consultant's short-, medium-, and long-term forecasts. If the company is in an early stage of growth or there are much more critical prospects to invest in, it might be smarter in the short term to install another technology.

Do you possess the required human resources?

After the solution plan is presented, it will be crucial to choose whether to complete the project internally or outside. To increase the probability that your employees will learn something from the situation and be able to assist you in the future, you should always make sure that the issue is handled by the appropriate individuals. The ability of your team will therefore influence how easy or difficult it is to assess the consultant's performance. In order to ensure that the most cutting-edge solution is used, information would constantly be shared.

Does the consultant possess the required expertise? 

There are currently a lot of tiny artificial intelligence consulting companies. Make sure you choose the appropriate provider based on your industry. Different skill sets are required by various businesses. The best source of information would be the vendor's previous work. The team's profile is important as well. People with advanced degrees are probably able to guarantee the best level of work quality. The various consulting companies have varying specialties; one may have the best team for text categorization while the other may excel at object detection. 

What are the fees for the Consulting services?

Some AI consulting businesses that simultaneously sell AI technologies offer  basic package fees for AI consulting. This is a more organized extension of similar strategies that has been successfully applied at IBM, where it resulted in 130 engagements at 115 organizations in a single year. TDM offers Joint Venture partnership programs and consulting services based on clients.

Time and material-based pricing

The majority of AI consulting projects, like the most of consulting projects, are charged according to the time and materials the consultant estimates are required for the project. At the start of the engagement. Proper due diligence is advised for both the parties before entering into the contract.

Success-based

There have been attempts to apply this to AI consulting as well. Some consulting projects are success-based. Even though success (or milestone) based initiatives appear to align the interests of consultants and clients, they nonetheless breed uncertainty and are difficult to quantify, leading to inefficiencies.

Because no customer wants to be in the dark about how much they must pay for a consulting project, uncertainty is a major problem. Although minimum and maximum fee caps may be negotiable, the precise amount of the payment will always be unknown.

The majority of indicators don't truly reflect success. For instance, even if a business launches a project to increase sales but sees no increase in sales afterwards, the initiative may not have been a failure. After a successful initiative to increase sales, a number of variables, including seasonality, an unanticipated recession, and the turnover of a sizable section of the personnel, might all result in flat or negative revenue.

Success-based fee measurement is challenging since it depends on measures that the client or consultant will track. Small measurement inaccuracies can result in substantial changes to the fees that must be paid