Will AI commoditise your point of differentation?

Is your thought leadership moving the needle?

I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing the UK boutique consultancy market. As part of the management team in a high-growth boutique, and now as a solution provider to boutique consulting firms.

One thing it’s shown me is how hard it is for most consultancies to differentiate.

Deep sector or capability specialists have it a bit easier.

Those with broader offerings don’t.

What you intrinsically know is special about you is hard to communicate in a way that resonates with others.

• Everyone delivers the best outcomes or best experiences for their clients (and has the quotes to back it up),

• Everyone has the best people,

• Everyone helps clients tackle problems or transform,

• Everyone does digital,

• Just about everyone is award-winning in some way.

We look at numerous consultancy websites every week. You just need to look at a sample to see this.

So what? This challenge of homogeneity exists already

True, but it’s going to get worse.

Thought leadership (TL) is one of the biggest tools a consultancy has to distinguish itself and the expertise of its people, to its target clients.

"93% of clients think it also has an impact on the price they end up paying for consulting work; 52% say it has a significant impact."
- Sourceglobalresearch

At the point where clients become, or are becoming problem-aware. Thought leadership is what helps them identify the specialists they seek, in a sea of generalists. It is why Edelman reported 61% of senior executives view thought leadership as a more trustworthy gauge of an organisation’s value to them than its marketing materials.

The challenge is that there are a lot of articles, and the majority sound the same. Generic article that barely graze the surface of a topic.

Generative AI’s arrival exacerbates this trend.

Enabling anyone to write a plausible article, that reflects consensus.

If (nearly) anyone can put a prompt in, and come out with an article that sounds dangerously similar to yours… what does that mean for your ability to differentiate?

This also applies to how you describe the services you provide. Ask your chat agent of choice to write website copy for a consulting firm that delivers your services. If the response is worryingly similar to your current website, it shows you might not be as differentiated as you think.

Now this doesn’t mean AI will replace the need for your consulting services. But it will make it harder to be noticed.

How to respond?

Imagine, if you could take your last 50-100 projects, and ask:

• What were the biggest client pains that others could learn from?

• Which conclusions did we repeatedly reach, that could be valuable for others?

• What were the outliers in our conversations, that could inspire meaningful differentiation?

Then, distils the unique data you receive back into a piece of TL. One that is:

• Easy to grasp its value in under a minute. I.e., to make them more informed/ effective in their job.

• Challenges assumptions with provocative ideas. I.e., talks to their precise pain points. Identifies new possibilities (even in an economic downfall).

• Gives concrete guidance. With a CTA that drives immediate action.

As Tom Goodwin points out:

…getting to this point will mean changing how you work. It will take time, it will take culture and it requires a coherent strategy.

But the reward is to avoid irrelevance and craft insights that are better/ different/challenging. This is where all progress comes from.

Here's our ask. If you care about this, let's have a conversation. On what would help or hinder you to take your next step.

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