😺 Consultants' AI cash cow

PLUS: We're hiring a writer for The Neuron 🚨

Welcome, humans.

ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re hiring a full-time writer for The Neuron! The role involves helping out with this newsletter, as well as some upcoming secret projects—ooooo!

If you’ve got a passion for AI, seasoned writing chops, and a knack for humor, throw your hat in the ring here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfDUa_-JGZPjBwRTD9IqYTS4e7XLPbn6oIXOptS3XhkLciKJw/viewform

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

Consultants are making a killing as firms seek out AI expertise
Personalized daily recaps of The Olympics are coming to Peacock.
Figma announced a bunch of new AI features to make design easier.
YouTube is in talks with music labels to license their songs.

AI consulting has turned into a gold mine for consultants.

Even if we sometimes scratch our heads about what they do (and so do they), consultants are raking it in as companies flock to them for AI guidance.

IBM has won more than $1B in AI-related consulting projects.
Accenture raked in $300M in sales from AI last year.
Perhaps most starkly, ~40% of McKinsey’s total business this year will come from its AI services.

It makes total sense.

Amidst all the ChatGPT hype and FOMO, every boardroom in America is now wondering, “How can we use AI to be more make more $$$?” Often, there’s no simple answer—AI applications vary widely across different companies and teams.

So they’re turning to the folks in navy blue suits who’ll whip up 100-slide PowerPoints to reassure them about their “strategy.”

“In the mid-90s, C.E.O.s would say, ‘I don’t know what a website is or what it could do for my business, but I need it.' This is similar. Companies are saying: ‘Don’t tell me what to build. Tell me what you can build.’”

Nigel Vaz

But they’re delivering more than just strategy—a big chunk of the value-add from consultants comes from AI implementation. In other words, don’t just tell us what to build…build it for us.

For instance, IBM built an internal tool for one business data provider that helps employees do detailed searches with specific supplier selection criteria.

Getting technical for a second: A key takeaway from all this news is how crucial the “service” aspect of “software-as-a-service” is in the AI domain. Simply put, launching ChatGPT isn’t enough—we might need boots on the ground (i.e. services) to truly deliver the software to the masses.

In related news, our friend Allie Miller released a benchmark to determine whether you’re behind or ahead in AI adoption.

Check it out, and then drop us a line about where your company stands:

Is your company on track with GenAI?

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Around the Horn.

Figma unveiled a feast of AI features, including transforming static designs into interactive prototypes and auto-renaming layers.
Anthropic is making its tools available to government bodies.
YouTube is discussing song licensing with the record labels that recently sued Suno/Udio, aiming to train an AI song creator legally.
ChatGPT-4o’s context window is significantly better than GPT-4 Turbo’s, meaning it recalls longer prompts/documents more effectively.

Treats To Try.

*Neighborhood Sun is a cleantech startup helping to connect everyone to affordable and accessible solar energy. Invest in Neighborhood Sun on Wefunder and become part of a sustainable future.
Superhuman 2.0 is an AI email assistant that automates email tasks like following up, drafting replies, and filtering spam.
Norm.ai converts regulations into computer code to automate compliance checks (raised $27M).
Inventive drafts proposal responses to save time for sales teams (raised $6.5M).
Jobright matches you with open jobs, tailors your resume, and suggests key network connections (raised $4.5M).

*This is sponsored content. Advertise in The Neuron here.