Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Sam Shar, CEO of enterprise technology consulting firm Trend-Setters Consulting.
Companies are facing an AI adoption challenge. They've spent big on new technologies only to see employee engagement dwindle a few months later — at about the same time that their consultants head for the door. To bridge the gap between rollout and sustained, effective usage, digital transformation partners need to stick around much longer.
At first glance, you might think the adoption is purely an implementation challenge — that AI outputs are unsatisfactory or that major gaps have been left when rolling it out. Ramp and Revelio Labs tracked thousands of U.S. companies and found that firms making serious AI investments grew headcount by about 10% over two years. Almost none of that showed up in the first three months and the effect was still climbing a year and a half in. The researchers call it a learning curve, but consultants might call it the stretch that begins after the invoice clears.
Often firms have rushed to implement AI over the past two years, wearing new tools as a badge of honor and a way to attract fresh business. To present themselves as forward-thinking and innovative, they've poured in resources without a clear plan for how the technology will be used across the business. Most crucially, they've often overlooked the need for comprehensive employee training and ongoing support.
Consultants aren’t blameless. For many, efforts have focused on strategy and the initial rollout. They often overlook long-term, productive use of these tools.
The irony is that consultants do their best work when they account for this key piece of the puzzle. Consultants who have been part of the implementation process since day one understand the technology inside and out. They created the deck that explained why it was a fit for the business in the first place.
Consultants are also perfectly placed to ensure AI is used properly, that it saves time and delivers better outputs. They could do all this if they took a longer-term view. If they embedded themselves in a client’s operations in the months, and perhaps even years, after the initial switch-on of AI pilots, then AI tools might be used more effectively.
The long view
For maximum impact, consultancy firms should even place full-time staff in clients' offices, providing constant, in-person support throughout the working week for as long as is needed.
This approach has two transformational facets.
First, consultants can provide regular training sessions when they sit within a client's operations. This should be non-negotiable but it is often overlooked in AI rollouts. A 2024 research note from Microsoft found that only 39% of people who use AI at work have received formal training from their company on how to use it.
Consultants who see the implementation process from start to finish can fix this. Through personalizing training sessions, running one-on-one upskilling workshops and keeping best practices up to date, they can make sure employees get what they need to get the most out of the technology.
Second, consultants can also provide in-house customer support. They can handle employee queries as they arise, preventing the frustration that builds when employees feel they've been left to fend for themselves. Instead of a question or concern sitting in an email inbox for days, workers can walk a few paces across their office and hear from the very person who built the technology into the firm.
It's a simple fix, yet it's not standard practice across the industry. Far too many consultancy firms take on AI projects, plan and execute implementation, and then withdraw. That's a short-term approach that damages consultants' reputations when the digital transformation they orchestrate fails to deliver what the client was hoping for, and wastes businesses' precious technology budgets.
To avert these problems, consultants should embed themselves within clients' operations over the long term, establishing themselves across office blocks, and offering in-house, round-the-clock support. That's the only way to truly close the gap between implementation and successful adoption, and deliver winning ROI.
