You’ve seen the deck before. Maybe you’re looking at it right now. Not just in AI. It’s in every overpaid ‘transformation’ project that promised results but delivered slides.
Slide 47 of 183: “AI Maturity Model – Your Organisation’s Journey.” Beautiful graphics. Arrows pointing from “AI Aware” to “AI Optimised” to “AI Native.” Your company is a red dot somewhere in the middle, surrounded by aspirational blue dots showing where you could be.
You’ve been in meetings about these slides for three months. You’ve paid $50,000, maybe $100,000. You’ve nodded along as terms like “organisational readiness” and “change management framework” were thrown around.
And you still can’t point to a single thing that AI is actually doing in your business.
Welcome to death by PowerPoint. This is where consultants get paid to create beautiful decks about AI transformation while your problems remain unsolved.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Dozens of small and mid-market companies describe the same pattern: big promises, beautiful slides, zero working software.
The Problem
There’s nothing wrong with AI strategy. You need to understand your problem before you build a solution.
The problem is consultants who do strategy, hand you a beautiful roadmap… and then disappear.
Here’s how it works:
A consultant shows up promising to “unlock AI’s potential” for your business. They’re polished, credentialed, and convincing. They use phrases like “strategic roadmap” and “comprehensive assessment.”
You hire them because you know AI is important and you’re not sure where to start.
Month 1-2: Discovery and Assessment
They interview your staff. They map your processes. They document your pain points. They’re doing real work, gathering real information. You’re hopeful.
Month 3: The Big Presentation
They deliver the deck. It’s impressive—200 slides of analysis, frameworks, recommendations, and roadmaps. They’ve identified 15 potential AI use cases, ranked by impact and feasibility. They’ve created an implementation timeline spanning 18 months. They’ve designed a governance structure. They’ve outlined change management considerations.
You paid $75,000 for this strategy.
Here’s what that $75,000 actually bought you: Insight, not action.
Month 4: The Handoff
“So… what happens now?”
“Well, you’ll need to hire developers to build these solutions. Or we can introduce you to implementation partners. Of course, they’ll need to do their own discovery process since they weren’t involved in our strategy phase…”
That’s not consulting. That’s an expensive homework assignment.
The deck goes into a shared drive. Your problems remain unsolved. That’s death by PowerPoint.
Why the PowerPoint Approach Persists
It’s not that these consultants are malicious. They are just operating within their own knowledge domain in an industry with high demand. People know they need AI, but they don’t know where to begin.
Most consultants can’t actually build AI systems. They’re strategists, not engineers. They know the buzzwords and the frameworks. They can analyse your business and make recommendations. But writing code, integrating with legacy systems, handling the messy reality of implementation? That’s not their skillset.
The handoff protects them from accountability. If the implementation fails, it’s not their fault; they just did the strategy. If the implementation succeeds, they can claim credit for the roadmap. It’s a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose proposition.
You don’t know what to ask for. Most business leaders don’t buy AI consulting regularly. You don’t know that “we’ll help you develop your AI strategy” might mean “we’ll make you slides and leave.” By the time you realise you’ve bought analysis instead of solutions, you’ve already paid.
The Question That Exposes PowerPoint Consultants
Don’t ask for a roadmap, ask for a receipt.
Here’s a simple test you can run in any first meeting with an AI consultant. Ask this question and listen carefully to the answer:
“At the end of our engagement, what will you have actually DONE?”
Not “what documentation will I receive?”
What will you, the consultant, have done?
Three Valid Answers
There are only three answers that indicate you’ll get real value:
1. “We will have BUILT something that works”
Specific examples:
- “We’ll have built an AI assistant that answers your employees’ HR and IT questions, integrated with your Teams environment, accessing your actual policies.”
- “We’ll have built a voice AI that eliminates your paper-based field forms, working on mobile devices.”
- “We’ll have built a system that reads your domain-specific documents and automatically fills out your recurring forms.”
Added bonus: if they can implement the strategy and train your people to use the software.
2. “We will have IMPLEMENTED a tool or process”
Specific examples:
- “We’ll have integrated ChatGPT into your customer support workflow, connected to your knowledge base.”
- “We’ll have configured and deployed an AI tool that works with your existing CRM, with proper security and access controls in place.”
- “We’ll have set up automated workflows between your systems using AI, tested and running in production.”
Notice they’re doing the implementation work, not just recommending tools you should consider.
3. “We will have TAUGHT your team until they no longer need us”
Specific examples:
- “Your team will be able to write effective prompts for your use cases without our help. We’ll sit with them until they’re competent.”
- “Your employees will know how to use the AI tools we’ve implemented as part of their daily workflow. We’ll train them hands-on with their actual work.”
- “Your staff will understand what AI can and can’t do, with their fears addressed and practical skills developed.”
Notice the focus on competency, not just “conducting a training session.”
What Good Strategy Actually Looks Like
Strategy is essential. You absolutely need to:
- Understand your business problems before jumping to solutions
- Identify which processes are good candidates for AI
- Assess technical feasibility and integration requirements
- Plan for employee adoption and change management
- Align stakeholders and set clear expectations
The problem is when the strategy ends with recommendations instead of execution.
Here’s what a good strategy looks like:
Week 1-2: Discovery
Interviews with staff who do the work
- Examination of actual systems and workflows (not theoretical frameworks)
- Focus on identifying one high-value problem to solve first
- Technical assessment by people who will actually do the building
Week 3-4: Planning
- Specific solution design (not generic recommendations)
- Integration approach for your actual systems (explicitly named, not “leverage existing infrastructure”)
- Fixed-price proposal for the build phase
- Clear success metrics tied to business outcomes
Key difference: The deliverable is a BUILD PLAN created by people who are about to build it, not RECOMMENDATIONS created by people who are walking away.
Alternatively, if you’re just buying training:
Session 1: North Star (Goal) setting
- Align on the goal you or your team is working to solve with AI (not just here’s how to write a prompt)
- Determine specific tools you will use
Subsequent sessions
- Tools in use with your/your team’s actual workflow
- Hands-on practice with the tools
When You’re Already in PowerPoint Hell
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking: “Too late. We already paid for the deck.”
You have options:
Option 1: Cut your losses
Stop the engagement. Yes, you’ve spent money on strategy. But don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Spending more money on additional “strategic alignment” phases won’t get you working software.
Option 2: Demand execution
Ask directly: “Can you build this, or do we need to find someone else?” If they can’t build, at least you’ll know quickly. If they can build but with a different (separate) team, get clear on pricing and timeline before proceeding.
Option 3: Get a second opinion
Have someone who actually builds AI systems review your strategy deck. They can tell you:
- Which recommendations are practical vs. theoretical
- What would actually need to be built
- Whether the proposed approach makes technical sense
- Realistic timelines and costs for execution
Many companies that ended up with great AI implementations started by wasting money on PowerPoint consulting. The mistake isn’t the wasted money—it’s wasting more money doubling down on the wrong approach.
Food for Thought
This isn’t unique to AI. It’s happened with every technology wave. “Digital transformation consultants” in the 2000s. “Big Data strategists” in the 2010s. The playbook is always the same: make it sound complex, sell analysis and frameworks, and hand off execution to someone else.
Consider this: While you’re in month 3 of your AI readiness assessment, your competitor just hired someone who built them a working solution in 12 weeks. They’re already measuring ROI and planning their next AI project. Your strategy deck is still in review.
Remember: AI isn’t theoretical anymore. For most business use cases, it’s not so cutting-edge that you need months of assessment to determine if it’s viable. Companies are using it right now, today, to solve real operational problems. The question isn’t “are we ready for AI?” The questions you should ask are “What specific problem will we solve first? Do we build or buy? If we build, who builds it?”
You don’t need another framework. You don’t need a maturity model. You don’t need a governance structure before you’ve built anything to govern.
You need someone who will sit down with your team, understand your most painful problem, and build or implement something that solves it. Then measure the results. Then decide what to tackle next.
Strategy matters. Discovery is essential. Planning prevents waste.
But at some point, someone needs to write code, configure systems, or train people.
The question is: will your consultant be there for that part, or will they hand you a deck and walk away?
Author: Olga Topchaya
Need an AI partner to build, implement or train? Learn more at Lapis AI Consults