Bloomberg reported that Boston Consulting Group's artificial intelligence services generated 25% of its revenue in 2025. BCG reported $14.4 billion in total 2025 revenue, which puts AI-related work at roughly $3.6 billion.
Numbers like that confirm something experienced professionals already sense: AI advisory is no longer an emerging demand. It’s becoming an established part of the consulting market.
They also raise an important question: as enterprise AI advisory scales upward, who is helping growing businesses turn AI interest into clear priorities and practical adoption?
One example from WSI’s own experience makes the need clear. A regional logistics company with around 60 employees wanted help thinking through AI, but most advisory options it found were built for much larger organizations. The company needed practical guidance on where to start, what to prioritize, and how to move forward without committing to an enterprise-scale consulting engagement.
A multibillion-dollar enterprise AI business on one side. A growing company looking for practical AI guidance on the other. That is where WSI’s consultant-led model is especially relevant.
Enterprise AI Advisory Is Built for Complex Engagements
Firms like BCG build their AI practices around large, complex engagements. That work often involves specialized teams, deep technical expertise, and broad organizational change across multiple departments.
That makes sense at the enterprise level, where AI strategy is often tied to infrastructure, operations, and long-term transformation goals. The scope is bigger, the stakes are higher, and the work usually requires significant internal resources to execute.
But the same questions are showing up inside growing businesses too. A law firm, manufacturer, or other growing business may not need a large consulting team, but they still need strategic guidance on where AI fits, what to prioritize, and how to apply it in ways that make sense for the business.
AI Adoption Still Needs Human Judgment
Plenty of small businesses are already trying AI tools. According to the SBA Office of Advocacy, small businesses' use of AI in day-to-day production rose from 6.3% to 8.8% between early 2024 and August 2025, while large businesses held around 10.5% over the same period.
The data points to a practical reality: smaller businesses are closing the AI use gap, but adoption is still early. Many owners understand that AI matters. What they often need is help deciding where it belongs in the business, what to prioritize first, and which risks to manage before moving ahead.
That is why the first conversation should not start with a tool. It should start with the business problem. Before a company commits to a platform, someone needs to help its leaders decide what AI should actually solve.
A good advisor brings something a tool comparison cannot: judgment built from seeing decisions like this play out before. Former executives, consultants, and operators have spent years sorting through trade-offs and recognizing when a plan looks solid on paper but will not hold up once it meets how the business actually runs.
The Value of a Repeatable Consulting Model
Guiding one client through this takes experience and a good conversation. Doing it across a dozen clients, each with its own systems, data, and level of readiness, takes something more.
A consistent way of working gives an advisor a starting point: a process for reviewing a client's digital foundation, identifying where AI could help, and ranking the first moves in an order the client can follow. It also means the advisor has more to draw on than their own project history, since a network of peers and shared frameworks gives them somewhere to turn when a client's needs grow past the first strategy conversation.
WSI’s Role in Bringing AI Advisory to Growing Businesses
WSI has spent three decades building around this kind of work. The company started in 1995, when the internet was changing how businesses found customers, and its consultants have continued to help organizations make sense of major digital shifts since.
Search, social media, marketing automation, and now AI adoption have all required the same balance: technical fluency, business experience, and the judgment to know what is worth doing. That is the idea behind “Embrace Digital. Stay Human.” Technology changes the conversation. People still make the decisions.
Today, that shows up in WSI’s Business Strategy and AI Adoption Frameworks, supported by a global network of consultants and shared expertise.
Experienced Leaders Are Built for This Moment
None of this requires a consultant to become a machine learning specialist. It calls for the judgment a former CMO, CTO, operator, or senior consultant has already spent years building, applied to a growing category of client need.
Business owners calling around for AI help usually aren't looking for someone to explain the technology line by line. They want someone who can look at their business and tell them what to do first. That's a strategy conversation, and it's exactly the conversation experienced professionals are equipped to lead.
WSI backs that conversation with real support:
- Proprietary frameworks for assessing AI readiness and prioritizing use cases, so the first client conversation doesn't start from a blank page.
- A six-month Quick Start Program designed to help new consultants understand the model, build confidence, and apply WSI’s frameworks in the market.
- Peer expertise and delivery support from consultants across the network who have worked through similar client questions.
- The credibility of a 30-year global brand, which matters when a prospective client is deciding whether to trust a new advisor with a strategic decision.
When a client's needs grow beyond the first strategy session, into marketing automation, data readiness, or implementation, a WSI consultant has a network to turn to instead of building the next answer alone.
AI Advisory Needs Business Leaders Now
BCG’s reported AI services revenue suggests enterprise AI advisory is no longer experimental. It is becoming a meaningful part of the consulting market.
A broader segment of business owners knows AI matters, has already started testing tools on their own, but often still needs practical advisory support that fits their scale. WSI consultants are equipped with structured frameworks to help lead those conversations.
For professionals weighing a move into digital and AI advisory, the market signal is clear: many businesses are still working through how to apply AI in practical, strategic ways. The remaining question is whether you want to be the advisor helping meet that need.
Explore how WSI’s strategy-first consulting model supports experienced professionals entering the digital and AI advisory space with structured frameworks, global expertise, and a collaborative consulting network.
