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What’s the biggest misconception about how AI will transform professional services?
We asked three of this year’s WIRED Trailblazers — our community of innovative, fast-growing scale-ups—to weigh in…
Around two years ago, ChatGPT was released and we entered a new technological era.
It showed the great strides that had been made in generative AI — a class of algorithms that can do everything from interpreting documents to writing computer code and visualising data — and it captured the public’s imagination.
Since then, generative AI has become the centre of gravity for the technology world, with all the industry giants pivoting towards it. Major announcements of new advances, new tools, and new applications seem to happen almost weekly, and there has been an explosion of startups.
“And it’s not just the dominant preoccupation of Silicon Valley,” says Victoria Ritchie, Head of Professional and Business Services at HSBC UK. “Since every company is, in some way, a tech company, it now preoccupies business brains across almost every sector, too. That includes the professional and business services sectors, which are driving fast change and challenging the status quo.”
But when the hype is so great, inevitably there comes a certain amount of confusion.
So when it comes to how generative AI will impact professional services, we were keen to know: what’s the biggest misconception that leaders should be attuned to?
We asked three sector Trailblazers for their views…
Some people are worried it will replace consultants. It won’t.
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ESG has gone from a peripheral concern to a business priority. But for companies without experience in the space, it can be hard to determine the correct goals and approach. Sustainable Advantage advises companies on their ESG strategies, including billion-pound multinationals.
“Some people are concerned that generative AI will replace ESG consultants — or indeed all consultants. That a client will just ask AI a question and it will give advice or write them a policy, and that will take work from professional services.
“But as we’ve played around with these tools, it’s clear the reality is very different. It can certainly be useful to professional services. It can help condense research, it can help write reports, it can help you learn about something and it can help automate part of the sales process. But it can’t actually be the consultant. Clients always want a bespoke service; AI is still generic.
“It also can’t do many of the things that are essential in professional services. There is so much human skill and knowledge involved in talking to clients, understanding their needs, gathering data, making the right assumptions, and interpreting outcomes correctly. Generative AI also has a tendency to ‘fill in blanks’ and make assumptions or links that may not be correct — and the reader may be unaware of the inaccuracy — so even for straightforward tasks you need humans involved to check everything is correct.
“In terms of where it’s going, I see a future where we use it more and more. I think there’s a particular opportunity for knowledge management, which is something all professional services companies will find useful. Imagine being able to say, ‘In the past, when a client has had this problem, what has been the recommendation?’ and being able to surface that really quickly. But I don’t see it taking our jobs. I see it allowing us to offer clients richer, more insightful work.”
Generative AI is getting all the airtime. But you shouldn’t ignore traditional machine learning.
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Cybersecurity is an increasingly pressing concern for businesses of all stripes, and AI is letting bad actors increase the volume and velocity of attacks. The good news is that machine learning is also improving defences — as PureCyber can attest. It offers comprehensive, managed cybersecurity services, tailored to clients across multiple sectors, to help them ensure robust internal and external security postures.
“Generative AI is getting all the attention at the moment, and that’s understandable. Anyone with an internet connection can try ChatGPT and see how incredible it is. It’s probably the first time they’ve consciously ‘used AI’ for anything, even if really a lot of things they’ve done for years have had AI involved on the back end. Nevertheless, the upshot is it has taken AI into mainstream conversation.
“But while generative AI is great for tasks that involve creating content — and I use that phrase very broadly — it’s not the be-all-and-end-all for professional services. Conventional machine learning is going to remain absolutely vital and will continue to have a major impact. It is ideally suited to recognising patterns and making predictions and decisions based on known factors in a way that generative AI is not. And for a lot of businesses, that is essential to automating tasks and making systems more effective.
“We use machine learning in both the offensive and defensive side of what we offer. It is fantastic for finding anomalies in network traffic, fraud detection, automated response — absolutely brilliant.
“That said, generative AI can obviously still be really helpful. We find it’s great for translating technical analysis into plain English for a client, for instance. And one thing that’s particularly interesting is how it can actually help you clean up data to feed into those conventional machine learning models. The ability to take unstructured, disparate data and make it usable is brilliant. I’m sure there will be whole professional services organisations built purely around that.”
Don’t expect the world to change overnight. But also don’t write it off as hype.
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Digital transformation has been the buzz-phrase of the past decade, but it’s easier said than done. Grayce provides clients with high-performing talent to drive organisational change and build internal capability. All of them have strong digital and data skills — which are continuously developed — to help inform strategic recommendations and drive project delivery.
“There’s a common misconception that generative AI is going to have a rapid and immediate impact. Because so much money is going into it, and there’s so much talk about the breadth of its applications, you might have expected the whole professional services sector to be completely different by now. Of course, that isn’t the case. And that can make people wonder: is this all just hype? But the reality is it will eventually have a serious impact. The business benefits and value will become clear, and deployment will spur innovation that in turn spurs wider deployments.
“But make no mistake: a lot of businesses are using it, so it’s wise to start preparing your business now.
“It’s crucial not to see it as something to leave to the ‘tech team’, or just a box to tick. Recognise that setting up your business for AI is going to require a deliberate cultural and organisational shift. We’ve just launched an ‘AI Lab’ to upskill all of our individuals across generative AI, process automation, governance and ethics, and data literacy. It’s also crucial people understand how these tools work, their benefits and also their limitations. You’re going to need to embed it across your organisation.
“In other words, this is going to be a real process. So the sooner you can get going, the better positioned you will be for when the real impact of this new era of AI becomes apparent.”
Misconception: It will take your job. Reality: It will make you better at your job.
Misconception: It’s all about generative AI. Reality: Conventional machine learning will remain vitally important.
Misconception: It’s going to have a rapid and immediate impact. Reality: It will be a slower process—but change is ahead.
