🌟 Vasilij’s Note
I spent most of this year watching UK consultancies make the same expensive mistake. They bought AI tools in January. Got excited in February. Hit implementation walls by March. Gave up by summer. The problem wasn't the tools. It was that nobody asked where the bottlenecks were first. Here's what I think changes in 2026 - and why it matters if you're running a consultancy.
In Today's Edition:
AI agents will work (but only in constrained workflows)
2025 was meant to be "the year of AI agents."
It wasn't.
Most agents broke when faced with real professional services work - multiple stakeholders, shifting priorities, judgment calls.
But here's what I've seen work: Agents that handle one repeatable workflow brilliantly.
Proposal generation following your templates
Status updates pulled from Slack and Asana
Meeting prep that actually saves 30 minutes per client call
The shift isn't autonomous agents replacing consultants. It's focused agents handling the tasks that drain billable hours.
If you're still waiting for a general-purpose AI assistant, you'll be waiting a while. If you map one repetitive workflow and automate it properly, that's 2026 sorted.
Research-heavy work gets genuinely faster
If your consultancy does any form of market research, competitive analysis, or technical due diligence - this matters.
AI is now handling hypothesis evaluation, experiment design, and results interpretation at speed.
The impact isn't "we saved 10%."
It's "we cut research cycles from 3 weeks to 4 days."
For consultancies competing on delivery speed or depth of analysis, this becomes table stakes in 2026.
How AI thinks will matter more than which model you use
Until now, "better AI" meant newer models.
That's changing.
The new advantage is how much compute gets allocated when AI is reasoning through complex problems - not just model size.
What this means practically:
Complex client briefs get deeper analysis
Simple queries get answered instantly
You're not paying for maximum compute on every single task
Translation: smarter AI that doesn't cost 10x more to run.
The big models will power the tools you actually use
You won't interact with trillion-parameter models directly.
But they'll power the tools that generate your pitch decks, analyse your project data, and draft your deliverables.
Think of them as the engine. You interact with the dashboard.
Perfect for UK consultancy partners, operations leaders, and delivery managers who need practical AI strategy—not theoretical possibilities.
Small, focused models will handle your actual workflows
At the same time, smaller models - the ones that run locally or cost pennies per task - are getting very good at specific jobs.
Client data classification
Document formatting
Basic analysis and summaries
When you need something domain-specific, fast, and cheap - small models win.
This is where most consultancies will see ROI in 2026. Not from frontier AI. From focused, workflow-specific AI.
AI moves from "nice to have" to operations
In 2025, most consultancies used AI for content generation or customer-facing chatbots.
In 2026, it moves into operations.
AIOps to stabilise your delivery systems
Resource allocation based on actual utilisation data
Project health monitoring that flags risks before they blow up
When 70-80% of your operational overhead is tied up in delivery management, this is where margins improve.
AI memory becomes a trust problem, not just a feature
AI systems that remember context across client interactions sound brilliant.
Until you ask: what's being remembered? For how long? Who controls it?
Done well, persistent memory transforms client relationships.
Done badly, it introduces privacy risks and trust issues that damage your reputation.
What client data gets retained?
How long does it persist?
Who can access it?
These aren't technical questions. They're governance questions every consultancy will face.
Human-in-the-loop becomes your competitive advantage
The consultancies that win in 2026 won't be the ones that replace consultants with AI.
They'll be the ones that redesign workflows so AI handles repetitive tasks and consultants focus on judgment, relationships, and strategy.
Better handoffs. Clearer accountability. Tighter collaboration between people and systems.
This is where trust, adoption, and profitability converge.
Final Thoughts
Most UK consultancies are still asking "what AI tools should we use?"
The better question is "where are our workflow bottlenecks that AI could address?"
That's why I built the AI Readiness Assessment - it shows you specific opportunities in your existing workflows, not generic tool recommendations.
Takes 5 minutes: https://insights.aigenticlab.com
Season's greetings from the AiGentic Lab team. Here's to better margins and fewer bottlenecks in 2026.
Vasilij
P.S. If these predictions turn out wrong, feel free to remind me in 12 months. But they're the patterns I'm betting the business on.
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