Is AI Killing or
Empowering Services
Professionals?
We analyzed services professionals across 6 continents. The answer: AI is doing both. Simultaneously. To different people.
What you'll find in this report: Which industries are winning (and why) • What separates power users from strugglers • Your roadmap to AI mastery
What We Found
Marketing & Advertising leads ALL industries in AI maturity. It's the only sector in top 5 across all four dimensions (productivity, innovation, decision-making, collaboration)
Advanced AI users save 13.83 hours weekly versus 2.84 for beginners. That's a 5x productivity gap that compounds daily
77.6% of professionals report negative psychological impacts from AI adoption, revealing a mental health crisis hiding in plain sight
The #1 barrier isn't cost or technology. It's lack of knowledge (15.83%), yet traditional training fails 75% of the time
What Makes This Different
Most AI reports measure intentions. We measured actual usage.
- • "Planning to adopt AI in next 12 months"
- • Survey responses about future intentions
- • Executive opinions and vendor pitches
- • Sample sizes of 200-500 professionals
- • Measured actual AI usage patterns daily
- • Tracked real productivity gains over time
- • 1,642 services professionals actively using AI
- • 231,210 conversational data points analyzed
We didn't ask "will you use AI?" We asked "show us how you're using it right now." Then we analyzed the patterns in what they actually did.
The Nuanced Consensus
We asked 238 consulting leaders one question. The answer: It depends.
"Will AI amplify or replace consulting work?"
The question we asked 238 industry leaders via LinkedIn
Say BOTH Amplify and Replace
68 experts acknowledged both amplification and replacement are happening—this isn't contradiction, it's conditional reality.
💡 Key Insight: The outcome depends on who adapts. Your AI Maturity Score predicts which side you're on.
Amplify Only
47 experts believe AI purely amplifies consulting capabilities
Replace Only
47 experts see AI replacing certain consulting functions
The Answer Isn't Binary—It's Conditional
This validates our benchmark findings:
Level 1-2 users risk replacement. Level 4-5 users gain 5x productivity.
If You're Skeptical, Good
You should be. Here's what we'd push back on if we were in your seat.
"Services work is too relationship-driven for AI to matter"
Advanced AI users (skill level 4-5) save 13.83 hours weekly versus 2.84 for beginners. That's a 5x difference that goes directly into client-facing work.
The evidence: When you're not drowning in admin work, you actually have time to think strategically about client problems.
"My firm already tried AI tools and they didn't stick"
Most firms make the same three mistakes. We found the pattern.
The evidence: Skip to the 'Three Traps' section - 67% of failed AI rollouts share these characteristics.
"This probably only works for certain types of services firms"
We broke down results by firm size, specialty, and geography. The patterns hold.
The evidence: See our industry comparison section - from Big 4 to boutique, the behavioral predictors are consistent.
Industry Leaders in
AI Maturity
Our analysis reveals distinct patterns across major industries. Interactive visualization shows rankings across all four dimensions.
Marketing & Advertising: Cross-Dimensional Leader
Only industry appearing in top 5 across ALL FOUR dimensions. Marketing didn't get lucky. They treat AI as a creative partner, not just an efficiency tool.
Marketing & Advertising
Healthcare & Medical
AI Maturity Positioning Matrix
We plotted each industry on two axes: Innovation (creativity, experimentation, ideation) and Productivity (time savings, efficiency, automation).
Four distinct patterns emerged, revealing which industries are winning on both fronts, which are trading off, and which are falling behind.
#5 Productivity
#1 Productivity
#9 Productivity
#6 Productivity
Key insight: Marketing dominates the Leaders quadrant. Professional Services sits in Innovators (creative but not maximizing productivity). Healthcare trapped in Laggards quadrant.
The Performance Gap
88+ Industry Leaders
Don't just trust the data—trust the practitioners who validated it
Featured Perspectives
Usman Sheikh
Founder
High Output Ventures
"AI doesn't amplify or replace consulting work - it collapses the economic model that made traditional consulting possible. The winners will build compounding infrastructure where outcomes determine re..."
Viktor Dörfler
Professor of AI Strategy - University of Strathclyde Business School, UK
University of Strathclyde Business School
"As the AI bubble bursts, professional services firms must help clients look past the hype in order to retain the tangible benefits of AI without being disillusioned by its overpromises. The challenge ..."
Stefan Kotański
TEJOURY
"My prediction is that initially AI will amplify consulting work — currently no one can analyze large amounts of data as fast as AI. It can generate better outputs using multiple variables and scenario..."
These leaders represent the same industries we benchmarked
Their insights mirror patterns in our N=3,300 dataset
Three Services Professionals Who Figured It Out
Not hypotheticals. These patterns emerged from our data.
Marcus, 34
Strategy Consultant
Tool Stack
Key Results
- ✓ Cut research time from 2 days to 4 hours
- ✓ Increased client meeting prep quality scores by 40%
- ✓ Took on 2 additional projects without working more hours
"I used to spend weekends catching up. Now I use AI for the grunt work and weekends for actual thinking."
From drowning in deliverables to strategic advisor
Priya, 29
Tax Senior Associate
Tool Stack
Key Results
- ✓ Reduced research time on complex tax questions by 60%
- ✓ Handles 30% more client queries per week
- ✓ Error rate dropped from 3% to under 1%
"My senior partner was skeptical until he saw I could find obscure rulings in minutes, not hours."
From research grunt to trusted advisor
James, 45
Managing Partner
Tool Stack
Key Results
- ✓ Win rate on proposals increased from 25% to 40%
- ✓ Reduced proposal turnaround from 2 weeks to 3 days
- ✓ Firm grew 35% without adding headcount
"We compete with firms 10x our size. AI is how we punch above our weight."
From capacity-constrained to growth-mode
Six Insights from
the Data
Experience No Longer Guarantees AI Competence
27 years of professional services experience shows minimal impact on AI performance. Correlation: r = -0.014 (essentially zero).
When the tools reset, everyone starts at zero. A 28-year-old with 5 years experience scores identically to a 52-year-old with 27 years experience.
The AI Capability
Difficulty Ladder
Most organizations invest backwards. Start simple. Compound upward.
Decision-Making
Strategic recommendations, hiring decisions. Demands deep trust
Collaboration
Shared AI workflows, team knowledge bases. Needs buy-in
Innovation
Brainstorming assistants, creative tools. Requires experimentation
Productivity
Automation, content generation. Immediate ROI, low barriers
- 4. Start with AI decision-making (hardest)
- 3. Build governance committees
- 2. Run innovation workshops
- 1. Finally try basic automation
- 1. Master Productivity First (60-80 range)
- 2. Then Innovation (35-51 range)
- 3. Then Collaboration (32-45 range)
- 4. Finally Decision-Making (25-42 range)
EU vs US
Professional Services
EU leads in AI maturity despite 125% income gap. Economic pressure drives efficiency.
Why EU Leads
Our interviews suggest economic pressure is a major driver: EU professionals have less room for inefficiency than US counterparts and talk more about "not being able to waste time." When you can't afford to waste time, you find tools that work.
Four Patterns Across 238 Independent Perspectives
Despite diverse backgrounds, clear patterns emerged from the data
What This Means:
Your AI Maturity Score doesn't predict replacement—it predicts which patterns you'll experience
Bottom Line Up Front
The industry rankings, capability ladder, and regional data above tell a consistent story. Here's what it means.
A Critical Inflection Point
AI adoption in services is already above 85%, but capability is split across four archetypes: Champions (~5%), Rising Stars (~11%), Experimenters (~35%) and Beginners (~49%). Your firm is somewhere on this curve whether you track it or not.
An 8–9× Performance Gap
Champions report 20+ hours of weekly time savings and $100K–150K in annual value per person. Beginners sit at 1–3 hours and ~$10K–25K. That gap compounds at the firm level.
The Customization Bottleneck
Over half of professionals have adequate AI skills but fail to customize tools to their workflows. The blocker is not knowledge, it's operating model: workflow redesign, permission, and incentives.
What to Do Next
- → Week 1: Explore 3 productivity use cases (content generation, research synthesis, data analysis)
- → Week 2-4: Add 7 more use cases across innovation/collaboration
- → Month 2-3: Track time savings, aim for 10+ hours/week
- → Days 1-30: Remove barriers (pre-approve tools, clarify privacy, eliminate IT approvals)
- → Days 31-60: Enable exploration (20 champions, 10 use cases each)
- → Days 61-90: Celebrate outcomes (case studies, competitions, recognition)
Based on this dataset: Advanced AI users (skill 4-5) show 38-point maturity advantage over beginners, translating to 15-20 point gains achievable in 90-day structured programs
The divide isn't random. Here's why.
Who's Using AI in Services?
Professional Services leads the charge, but the adoption gap between sub-industries reveals where the biggest opportunities lie.
The 5X Skills Gap
Advanced AI users save nearly 5 times more hours per week than beginners. The difference isn't talent. It's technique.
Services Leads in AI Proficiency
Nearly 6 in 10 services professionals have achieved advanced AI skills. This rate outpaces most other sectors.
62.7% Report High Productivity
Nearly two-thirds of services professionals using AI report high or very high productivity gains. The tools work when you know how to use them.
What's Holding Teams Back
The biggest barrier isn't technology or cost. It's knowledge. Training gaps account for nearly half of all adoption challenges.
Training deficits (15.83%) alone account for more adoption challenges than accuracy concerns, privacy issues, and cost combined. The solution isn't better tools. It's better education.
What They're Using & How
ChatGPT dominates with 51% adoption, but the tool matters less than the use case. Top performers spread across 10+ applications.
ChatGPT's 51% dominance reflects accessibility, not superiority. Claude (15.59%) and Gemini (13.70%) show strong adoption among technical users.
Content creation (18.75%) and research (17.66%) dominate. That's 36% of all use cases. The winners aren't finding exotic applications; they're mastering the fundamentals.
Kill or Empower?
The data above shows who's winning and losing. Now we examine what this competition is doing to the people inside it.
The Mental Health
Crisis Nobody Talks About
Professional services workers report wildly different psychological responses to AI adoption. The distribution reveals a crisis hiding in plain sight.
Wait. Those don't add up to 100%?
Correct. Workers report BOTH positive and negative impacts simultaneously. The same person feels excitement AND anxiety. This is the duality of AI adoption.
The Three Traps That Kill AI Initiatives
We watched these patterns sink otherwise-promising AI rollouts. Repeatedly.
The Metrics Trap
Measuring tool logins instead of outcomes
Why It Feels Right
High adoption numbers feel good in steering committee meetings. But someone logging into ChatGPT twice a day tells you nothing about whether they're actually getting value. We found teams with 95% 'adoption' and zero productivity gains.
The Consequence
Resources go to training people on tools they'll abandon within 90 days. The real winners (the people figuring out valuable use cases) get ignored because they don't show up in the dashboards.
The Fix
Track three things: time saved per task, output quality scores (client feedback, error rates), and which specific use cases deliver ROI. One team we studied tracks 'hours reclaimed per week per person.' Simple, honest, actionable.
The Tool Buffet Trap
Giving everyone access to everything
Why It Feels Right
It feels democratic. But when people have 8 AI tools and no guidance on which to use when, they either: (a) use none, paralyzed by choice, or (b) use the wrong tool for every task, getting mediocre results.
The Consequence
Your team spends more time evaluating tools than using them. Meanwhile, the 12% of high performers have picked their 2-3 favorites and gone deep. The gap widens.
The Fix
Pick 2-3 tools. Make them good. Train people properly on those specific tools. Our data shows that depth beats breadth every time. Top performers use fewer tools, not more.
The Orphan Initiative Trap
No clear owner for AI success
Why It Feels Right
When AI is 'everyone's job,' it's nobody's job. Without someone accountable for results, initiatives drift, learnings aren't shared, and quick wins never compound into systematic advantage.
The Consequence
Early adopters flame out. Skeptics feel vindicated. The organization concludes 'AI didn't work for us' when really they just never gave it a fair chance.
The Fix
Assign a specific person (not a committee) to own AI productivity. Give them a small budget, clear metrics, and executive air cover. The organizations seeing 20%+ productivity gains all have someone whose job depends on making AI work.
Recognizing these patterns is the first step. The 30-Day Blueprint below helps you avoid them.
The 5 Irreplaceable Capabilities
While AI handles analysis and data, experts agree on what remains uniquely human
What AI Handles
Mentions across 238 expert responses
What Humans Keep
Click to see example quotes for each capability
This aligns with our benchmark findings:
High scorers (Level 4-5) save 13.8h weekly. They redirect that time into these exact capabilities.
30-Day Blueprint for Services Firms
This isn't a 6-month digital transformation. It's a focused sprint to prove AI value.
Pick Your Battleground
Days 1-7
- → Identify one recurring task that eats 5+ hours weekly
- → Choose one AI tool (not three)
- → Set a baseline: how long does this task take now?
Why this matters: Trying to boil the ocean kills initiatives. Start small, prove value, then expand.
Build the Habit
Days 8-14
- → Use the tool daily for that one task
- → Document what works and what doesn't
- → Don't optimize yet. Just build consistency
Common mistake: Switching tools because the first attempt wasn't perfect
Measure and Adjust
Days 15-21
- → Compare time spent vs. your baseline
- → Identify the specific prompts/workflows that work
- → Share results with one skeptical colleague
Reality check: If you're not seeing 20%+ time savings by now, reassess your use case
Scale or Pivot
Days 22-30
- → If it worked: Document the workflow, train one other person
- → If it didn't: Try a different use case (not a different tool)
- → Set up a 30-day follow-up to check if it stuck
Success metric: The person you trained is still using it independently
Based on patterns from the 12% of professionals who saw measurable productivity gains.
For the People Making Decisions
If you're a partner or HR leader, here's what the data says works.
What Actually Drives Adoption
Visible leadership use
When partners use AI tools visibly, firm-wide adoption is 2.3x higher. Not talking about AI. Using it in meetings, sharing outputs.
Focused training investment
4+ hours of hands-on training → 67% still using tools at 90 days
Under 2 hours → 25% retention. The difference is feeling competent.
Named accountability
Firms with an "AI champion" report 89% positive ROI vs 34% for firms treating AI as a general IT initiative.
What to Stop Doing
- ✕ Stop buying tools without training budgets attached
- ✕ Stop measuring "how many people logged in"
- ✕ Stop expecting organic adoption to happen on its own
AI adoption in services firms isn't a technology problem. It's a change management problem with technology involved. The firms winning are treating it that way.
Methodology & Research Approach
This isn't another industry survey where we asked people how they feel about AI.
We measured concrete workflows, time savings, and business outcomes via structured assessments across 1,700 services professionals in 106 countries.
Actions, not opinions
We measured what people actually do in their workflows, not vague feelings about AI
Services-specific focus
Services firms are different. We filtered the data for your world
Action-oriented findings
Each section ends with what you can actually do with this information
Research Scale & Methodology
Sample Size
1,700 services professionals
across 106 countries and 100 languages
Completion Rate
77%
of started assessments completed
Margin of Error
±2.4%
at 95% confidence level
Data Collection
August 2024 - November 2025
Statistical Methods
- • Spearman rank correlation (ρ) for ordinal relationships
- • Mann-Whitney U for two-group comparisons
- • Kruskal-Wallis for multi-group analysis
- • Effect sizes: Cohen's d, η² (eta-squared)
- • 95% confidence intervals reported
Limitations
- • Self-reported productivity measures
- • Convenience sampling through professional networks
- • Cross-sectional design (correlation ≠ causation)
Who should read this:
- → Services firm partners wondering if AI investment is paying off
- → Consultants trying to figure out which tools actually matter
- → HR leaders building AI training programs for professional services teams
Built With
This research was conducted in collaboration with leading organizations committed to understanding AI adoption in professional services.
Want to Know Where You Actually Stand?
Reading about other firms is useful. Knowing where your firm sits in this data is actionable.
Take the AssessmentNo sales call required. Just data.
<15 minutes. You'll get:
- → Your AI Maturity Score compared to 1,700+ services professionals
- → Specific recommendations based on your firm's profile
- → Benchmark data for your firm size and specialty
Over 5,000 professionals have completed this assessment.
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Every Voice That Shaped This Research
238 industry leaders shared their perspectives. Find yours.
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