AI in Professional Services

2024–present (ongoing)

AI Training Results

  • £478,676  annual productivity recovered (so far)

  • 13x return on training investment

  • 22,584 hours saved annually using AI

  • 98% would recommend the training

Services Delivered

• AI Essentials (bespoke, in-person and online) – 300+ attendees across six offices

• AI Activation Programme

• AI Strategy workshop for senior management

• 18-month AI Strategy & Opportunities roadmap

• 52 x 1:1 coaching sessions for power users

A leading microeconomics consultancy

This professional services firm provides advice to public and private sector clients on competition policy, regulation, commercial strategy, behavioural economics and energy and climate change. Founded in 1999 by a team of economists, it's now one of the largest economic consultancies in Europe, with 400 employees and annual revenues exceeding £84 million.

The challenge

Like many knowledge-intensive firms, they'd seen pockets of AI adoption but nothing systematic. Some people were using ChatGPT; others weren't sure where to start. The leadership team wanted to build consistent AI capability across the entire organisation – not just improve individual productivity, but shift the firm's culture toward AI-augmented work.

Our approach

This is our most comprehensive engagement to date, spanning training, strategy and sustained culture change. We're delivering bespoke AI Essentials workshops to over 300 team members across six European offices: London, Cologne, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Dublin.

Beyond the workshops, we've delivered an AI Activation Programme to drive sustained adoption – because skills without habits don't stick. We ran a tailored AI Strategy workshop for the senior management team and produced an 18-month AI Strategy & Opportunities roadmap to guide the firm's ongoing AI investment.

For their most advanced users, we've provided 52 one-to-one coaching sessions to help power users continue developing. Each office engagement includes customisation calls with local leads and pre/post workshop AI Opportunities surveys to measure impact. A full training efficacy report covering the whole organisation is scheduled for Q3 2026.

The results so far

With 125 of the planned 300+ team members trained to date, the results are already substantial. The firm reports saving 47 minutes per person per day using AI – that's nearly four hours per week per consultant.

Across the 125 people trained, that translates to 22,584 hours saved annually and £478,676 in productivity recovered. The return on training investment so far: 13x.

98% of attendees would recommend the training to colleagues – and as the programme rolls out to the remaining offices, we expect the total impact to more than double.

The AI use cases the team have built

The team has developed AI applications tailored to the specific demands of economic consultancy work:

ESG Questionnaire Assistant

Drafts consistent, evidence-based responses to ESG supplier questionnaires using approved internal sources. What used to take hours of hunting through past submissions now takes minutes – with better consistency across responses.

Contract Version Comparison Tool

Identifies clause-level changes between contract drafts and summarises the legal and commercial implications. Essential for a firm that reviews dozens of contracts during any given engagement.

Excel Data Consolidation Assistant

Combines and standardises datasets from multiple Excel files into a single clean, analysis-ready output. Economic analysis often requires pulling data from disparate sources – this tool eliminates hours of manual reformatting.

PowerPoint Restructuring Assistant

Rewrites and reorganises slides to improve clarity, narrative flow and executive readability. Consultants spend significant time polishing presentations for senior client audiences – this accelerates the refinement process.

Economic Expert Report Comparison Tool

Compares multiple expert reports to highlight differences in assumptions, methodology and conclusions. In litigation support work, understanding where expert opinions diverge is critical – this tool surfaces those differences systematically.

Competition Litigation Precedent Tracker

Monitors new UK competition cases and summarises relevant rulings, themes and implications. Staying current on precedent is essential for competition economists – this tool does the monitoring automatically.

Regulatory Monitoring Assistant

Produces weekly summaries of German energy policy updates and flags material regulatory changes. For a firm advising on energy and climate policy, this keeps consultants informed without drowning in primary sources.

Legal Email Drafting Assistant

Produces clear, professional first drafts of legal correspondence aligned to firm style and tone. Getting the first draft right reduces the editing burden on senior staff.

Expert Report Formatting Checker

Reviews reports for structure, consistency and compliance with submission requirements. Expert reports must meet strict formatting standards – this tool catches issues before submission.