Can a Consulting Firm Sell or License Its Client Work to AI?
AITrainingDataBroker.com
Can a consulting firm
license its client
work to AI?
Reports, drafts, models and partner reviews: what AI companies may want, and what your clients keep private.
Jimmy Lin
Can a consulting firm license its client work to AI?
Hello, everyone. If you run a consulting firm, your shared drive holds years of reports, models and slide decks, and next to many final versions sits the draft that was wrong and the note that fixed it.
In this video, I will answer the questions a managing partner would ask before licensing that work to AI companies, and it starts with a study that was run inside a consulting firm.
The video
Full script
Hello, everyone. If you run a consulting firm, your shared drive holds years of reports, models and slide decks, and next to many final versions sits the draft that was wrong and the note that fixed it.
In this video, I will answer the questions a managing partner would ask before licensing that work to AI companies, and it starts with a study that was run inside a consulting firm.
That study came out in 2023, when Harvard Business School and the Boston Consulting Group tested 758 consultants, and on routine tasks, the ones using AI finished 12.2% more work and were 25.1% faster.
But on the hardest task, a business problem that took careful judgment, the consultants using AI were 19% less likely to get the right answer.
That kind of judgment is what AI is still missing, and in a consulting firm, it is written down in your files.
Before we open those files, let me tell you who I am.
I'm Jimmy. I have worked in data at Fortune 500 companies, as a data analyst, a data engineer and a software engineer, and I am trained in data science. I am also a Canadian military veteran, where I specialized in data analysis and reporting.
Are you selling your data? We are your broker and technical advisor. We get you the best price, and we guide your team through the technical side, so your data stays private.
Are you buying data for an AI lab? We find the right data for you and see it through to delivery, so you can focus on advancing AI research.
So, let us start with the first question a managing partner asks: what would an AI company want from a consulting firm?
The final report shows the answer, but the drafts and workpapers show how your team got there, like the model, the interview notes and each version of the deck.
And the partner's review shows the judgment, which is the part AI got wrong in that study, because it says what was wrong with a draft and why.
So the final report is the smallest part of the work, and the trail behind it is what AI companies want to learn from.
Now, here is what that looks like in practice. Say a grocery chain with 9 stores asks your firm which stores to close, and the first draft says to close 2 of them.
Then the partner reads it and writes one note: the rents are from 2023, so use the new leases.
With the new numbers, the answer changes, so the final report says to close 1 store and move another one.
The final report alone shows only the answer, but the drafts and that note show the mistake, the fix and the reason, which is exactly what an AI company can learn from.
Is any of this worth something? Some of the largest consulting firms already think so.
In 2023, McKinsey launched its own AI tool, called Lilli, which searches more than 100,000 internal documents and interview transcripts from the firm's past work.
If one of the largest firms treats its old files as fuel for AI, then your firm's files have value too, even if you never build a tool of your own.
Now the hard question: can a consulting firm share client work at all?
Your own methods, templates and training material are usually yours, so they are the easiest place to start.
The reports and models you made for a client are different, because the client's signed agreement may say who owns them and what you must keep private, so we check the agreement first.
And the data a client gave you, like their sales figures or their staff lists, is never shared unless the client agrees in writing, and if an agreement bans sharing, we leave that work out of the license.
This is not legal advice, so ask your own lawyer.
Before any AI company sees a file, we de-identify your data, which means we strip out the client names, the names of your people, the addresses and the exact figures.
For example, Northgate Grocers becomes Client 40 in every draft, model and email, and Tom Becker becomes Partner 6.
But a client can also be recognized from small details, like a street name or an exact rent, so the Elm Street store becomes Store 6, and the exact rent becomes a range.
And because it is a license, not a sale, you keep your files and keep using them.
Of course, some consulting firms have more to offer than others, so which files count the most?
5 years or more of client work counts, especially when the drafts are kept next to the final version, and the files are the originals, like the spreadsheet model and the slide deck, not only a PDF.
Review comments count too, and so does going deep in one practice area, like pricing, supply chains or health care.
And it helps to have 30 or more people at the firm, because a bigger team writes more of this down.
How does a consulting firm get from a shared drive to a signed license? That is my job, as your broker and technical advisor.
As your broker, I bring your data to several AI companies and AI labs so they compete for it, and I work through the terms with you, and you make the final call.
On your side, the main job is exporting the files from your shared drive, and as your technical advisor, I guide your team through it, help pair each draft with its final version, and make sure we de-identify your data before any AI company sees it.
Nothing moves until your team signs off, and my fee is paid only when a license is signed, so if no deal closes, you owe nothing.
So, could your old client work earn a second fee, once from the client and once as data? Now you know which files to look for.
If you run a company with 30 or more people, the data you already have could become a new revenue stream. You can find out if yours qualifies, for free, at AITrainingDataBroker.com.
If you have further questions, leave them in the comments, and I will answer them in the next video.
Thank you for watching, and I will see you next time.
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