We sat through six "AI transformation" pitches in the last eight weeks. Different consultancies. Same three slides.
Slide one: a chart of how much money AI will be worth by 2030. Slide two: a maturity model with five stages, where the client is always at stage two. Slide three: a roadmap with three workstreams, all of which require the consultancy to be hired for at least nine months.
We are not exaggerating. The slide structure is so consistent we now know which template they pulled it from.
What "AI transformation" means in 2026 in most consulting engagements is: a chatbot proof-of-concept, a copilot deployment for the marketing team, and a six-figure invoice. The actual operational change is somewhere between negligible and cosmetic. The client signs because the board demanded an AI strategy. The consultant delivers because that is what was scoped. Nothing meaningful changes.
This is not a complaint about consultants. It is an observation about a market that has converged on a product because the buyer is not asking for anything else. If a CFO asked the consultancy what specific cost line would shrink, by how much, and over what period, the slide deck would not survive the meeting. CFOs are not asking that question. They are asking for an AI strategy.
The Editor's Note
If you are reading this and the pattern fits your business — start the conversation before the conversation starts itself. editor@unpublished.my.
The operators who will get value from this technology are doing it without the slide deck. They have an internal team. They have a specific use case. They have a measurable outcome. They are not waiting for a consultant to draw a maturity model for them.
If you are about to engage a consultancy for an AI transformation, here is a test. Ask them to name a single client where their work reduced a measurable cost or grew a measurable revenue line in the last twelve months. The names they give you will be very few. The ones they cannot give you will be the truth.
Buy the outcome. Not the deck.
