AI reshapes professional services around trust and business outcomes
SiliconANGLE Cheryl Knight
AI is pushing professional services firms to redo how they work, not just speed up tasks. The big shift: trust and judgment matter more when machines handle the routine.
Based on reporting by SiliconANGLE, Cheryl Knight — read the original for the full story.
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Professional services firms are starting to treat AI less like a handy tool and more like a reason to rebuild how work gets done. That was the message from Matt Cook of PwC U.K. and Prasad Narasimhan Sulur of Certinia, who argued that the firms getting ahead are redesigning delivery models instead of just bolting AI onto old ones.
Cook’s line was blunt: the winners are not simply using better tools, but creating value in a different way. That matters because the payoff is still uneven. PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey found only 12% of chief executives said AI had delivered both revenue growth and cost reductions, while 56% saw no significant financial benefits at all.
The problem is that faster work at one step does not automatically mean faster delivery overall. Sulur used software development as an example: AI can shorten coding, but testing, integration and release can still slow the project down. Consulting has the same issue. Research and analysis may be compressed from months into weeks, but only if the whole workflow is redesigned around that change.
Both executives also stressed that adoption is not just a management memo from the top, or a few enthusiastic employees from the bottom. It needs both. Leaders have to set direction, while workers build the skill to use AI well and spot where the process can improve. That combination, Sulur said, is what moves things forward.
As AI takes on more of the repetitive work, the real pressure shifts to trust, governance and human accountability. Cook said AI can help gather evidence and build scenarios, but it does not carry professional responsibility. That stays with people. He also pointed to PwC research showing that junior roles exposed to AI are starting to demand skills more associated with senior staff, including leadership and decision-making.
The bigger change here is not that firms will produce more content. It’s that they’ll need better judgment to sort through it. In a sector that sells confidence as much as output, that’s a pretty important distinction.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the part of AI everyone pretends is optional until a client asks who signed off. The firms that win won’t be the ones with the loudest demo, but the ones that can prove their machines didn’t confuse speed with competence. Professional services has always been about trust; AI just made that painfully obvious.
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