咨询如何揭示人工智能颠覆的真实模式

本播客由谷歌赞助。大家好，我是奥马尔，谷歌DeepMind的产品设计负责人。我们刚刚在AI Studio推出了全新的编程体验，让你能自由组合AI功能，以前所未有的速度将创意变为现实。只需描述你的应用，Gemini就会自动为你配置合适的模型和API。

This podcast is sponsored by Google. Hey, folks. I'm Omar, product and design lead at Google DeepMind. We just launched a revamped vibe coding experience in AI Studio that lets you mix and match AI capabilities to turn your ideas into reality faster than ever. Just describe your app, and Gemini will automatically wire up the right models and APIs for you.

如果你需要灵感，点击'手气不错'按钮，我们会帮你启动项目。访问ai.studio/build创建你的第一个应用。

And if you need a spark, hit I'm Feeling Lucky, and we'll help you get started. Head to a i.studio/build to create your first app.

当AI相关裁员成为头条之际，今天我们探讨为何咨询及更广泛的专业服务行业正是研究AI颠覆进程的绝佳案例。《AI每日简报》是关注AI领域最重要新闻与讨论的每日播客和视频节目。朋友们，在开始前先快速通告：首先感谢赞助商Gemini、Robots and Pencils、Blitzy、Rovo和Assembly。想获取无广告版本，请访问patreon.com/aideallybrief或在苹果播客订阅。

As AI related layoffs make headlines, today we are exploring why the consulting and broader professional services industry is a perfect case study in how AI disruption is actually likely going to take place. The AI Daily Brief is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI. All right, friends, quick announcements before we dive in. First of all, thank you to our sponsors Gemini, Robots and Pencils, Blitzy, Rovo, and Assembly. To get an ad free version of the show, go to patreon.com/aideallybrief or you can sign up on Apple Podcasts.

赞助合作请联系sponsorsaidailybrief.ai。再提醒一次：我们的年度ROI基准研究已在roisurvey.ai上线，如能贡献一两个案例将不胜感激。欢迎回到《AI每日简报》。本周正值我的结婚纪念日在外旅行，因此我们借机制作了几期平时被AI新闻洪流挤占时间的特别节目。今天的主题其实与我们持续追踪的关键故事——那些声称（且多数确实）与人工智能相关的裁员潮——存在诸多关联。

And for information about sponsorships, shoot us a note at sponsorsaidailybrief dot ai. One more quick reminder: Our end of year ROI benchmarking study is live at roisurvey.ai, and I would so appreciate it if you would contribute a use case or two. Welcome back to the AI Daily Brief. I am traveling this week for my anniversary, so we are using that as a chance to do some slightly different types of shows that we normally don't have time for with the ever pressing crush of AI news. Now today's topic actually in many ways does connect to a key story that we've been tracking, which is the rise of layoffs that claim to be, and in many cases are actually related to artificial intelligence.

具体而言，我想聚焦于某个特定行业，对许多人来说，这个行业在AI时代注定消亡的论调从未间断，它被视为白领阶层即将面临灾难的典型代表。我说的正是咨询和专业服务行业。今年随便翻开媒体都能看到'咨询业将死'的报道：一月份的《快公司》就警告'咨询师们要当心了'。

Specifically though, I want to hone in on a particular industry where for many people, the narrative is and has been that it is absolutely doomed in the era of AI and is exemplary of the white collar catastrophe that is coming down the pipeline. I'm talking of course about consulting and professional services. You couldn't throw a stick this year without hitting a story about how consulting was going to die. Fast Company back in January. Consultants beware.

AI要来抢你们的饭碗了。《经济学人》今夏某周二刊文《AI时代谁还需要埃森哲？》，指出二月至六月间市场抹去了埃森哲600亿美元市值。八月《华尔街日报》报道'AI正在吞噬咨询业'，麦肯锡内部称这是'生死存亡之战'。

AI is coming for your job. This Tuesday from The Economist this summer, Who needs Accenture in the age of AI? They pointed out that between February and the June, markets had wiped around $60,000,000,000 off of Accenture's market cap. In August, the Wall Street Journal writes AI is coming for the consultants. Inside McKinsey, this is existential.

副标题道出忧虑：'如果AI能在数秒内分析信息、处理数据并生成精美PPT，这家咨询业巨头该如何保持竞争力？'更糟的是几起重大失误：比如德勤澳大利亚因提交漏洞百出的AI生成文件，不得不退还政府合同款项。同时越来越多报道聚焦于试图颠覆部分或整个咨询模式的新锐初创公司。这种唱衰声浪持续不断。

The subtitle captured the concern: If AI can analyze information, crunch data, and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck within seconds, how does the biggest name in consulting stay relevant? Making this worse were very high profile screw ups. We're the one where Deloitte in Australia had to give back a bunch of money for a government contract because of an AI error riddled paper that they handed in as their work. You're also increasingly getting stories about the new legion of startups that are trying to disrupt some part or all of the consulting model. And this drumbeat just goes on and on.

路透社上周刚发表了一篇题为《AI为全球咨询公司创造柯达时刻》的文章。记得我在五月份某期节目中就谈过AI将如何变革专业服务公司。今天我想换个角度，探讨为何从更宏观层面看，咨询业其实是研究AI颠覆效应的绝佳案例，这种颠覆将体现在多个维度。接下来我将分享关于AI与咨询业的13个观点，正如我所说，这些观点能具象化展现AI将如何在专业服务领域引发实际变革。如果这些配图俗气得让你眼睛流血，我道歉——但我实在忍不住要生成这些堪称史上最可怕的库存照片。

Reuters published a piece just last week called AI sets up Kodak moment for global consultants. Now, I have talked about in a previous episode from I think back in maybe May, how I think AI is specifically going to change professional services firms. Today, I want to take the conversation in a slightly different area and talk about why I think, on a broader level, consulting is actually a pretty perfect case study in how AI disruption is likely to take place across a number of different dimensions. So what I'm going to do is go through 13 thoughts related to AI and consulting that as I said, I think show how AI disruption is going to play out in practice across professional industries. And if your eyes are now bleeding from the horrifying cheesiness of these images, I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist just generating the most absolute horrifying stock photo slop that I possibly could.

不客气。首先要注意，AI将让企业真正看清自己购买的到底是什么。传统观点认为咨询业会被颠覆，是因为历史上企业购买的核心是稀缺的专业知识和信息。但猜怎么着？AI让这两者都变得唾手可得。

You're welcome. Alright, so first note, one of the things that AI is going to do is it's going to make what you're actually paying for really clear. The reason that there is a conventional wisdom aspect to the idea of consultants being disrupted is that a big part of what businesses have historically paid consultants for is scarce expertise and scarce information. Well, guess what? AI makes both expertise and information abundant rather than scarce.

如果咨询公司只提供这些，那他们确实完蛋了。但显然他们提供的远不止于此，其中最重要的是品牌价值和决策保护伞。说麦肯锡、BCG、毕马威或埃森哲等公司被雇佣的部分原因，是让高管们能验证自己的想法、向上级证明决策合理性，甚至为可能的失败找替罪羊，这并非贬低——毕竟很少有人会因为雇佣麦肯锡而被解雇。

And if that was truly all consultants were offering, well, I think they'd be screwed. However, that is of course not everything that consultants are offering. There are actually many different dimensions to it, not least of which is the brand value and cloud cover for executive decisions. It is not a knock on McKinsey or BCG or KPMG or Accenture or or any of these other firms to say that part of the reason that they get hired is so that executives can double check their own thinking, validate and support their decisions to their higher ups, and frankly, have someone to blame if things go wrong. In almost all circumstances, people don't get fired for hiring McKinsey.

这种品牌价值和决策保护伞不是AI能轻易取代的。事实上在充满不确定性的转型期，这种品牌保障反而更具价值。但纵观白领行业，AI颠覆的核心主题之一就是清晰揭示企业购买服务的实质内容。第二点在于，咨询和专业服务行业（以及其他许多行业）中，AI同时利好传统品牌和挑战者品牌——正如刚才所说，传统品牌的高信任度在当前阶段极具优势。

And that sort of brand value and cloud cover for decisions is not something that AI just ups and replaces. In fact, AI creates this whole new scary category of transformation where that brand assuredness is extra valuable. But again, if we're zooming out and trying to generalize for a variety of white collar industries, one big theme of disruption is that AI is going to very quickly make it clear what are all the different things you're actually paying for when you're buying a product or working with a particular type of company. Number two, it is absolutely the case in the consulting and professional services industry, and I believe in many other industries as well, that AI has tailwinds for both legacy and challenger brands. Going back to the theme that we were just speaking about legacy brands have a high trust quotient that is incredibly useful right away.

最初这种品牌信任的价值在于，企业寻求指导时会自然选择合作过的伙伴。我认为这种优势在从试点转向全面部署阶段会更明显，因为企业逐渐意识到成功很大程度上取决于数据管理方式，而这类敏感重要数据会进一步促使他们选择可信赖的品牌——这就是传统品牌的顺风局。但同时（后面会详述），新消费类别、业务线和活动会为挑战者品牌创造机遇，尽管他们往往需要与传统品牌正面竞争。

Initially, that brand trust was valuable because when companies were looking for guidance, it was natural for them to turn to partners they'd already worked with. And I think that is even bolstered now as we move from pilots and experimentation into the full deployment phase as companies realize that a big part of their success is going to be contingent on the way that they organize and interact with their own data, and that sort of privileged, important, and private data is likely to further incentivize them to work with brands that they already trust. Hence, tailwinds for the legacy brands. At the same time, as we'll discuss a little bit later, there are lots of new categories of spend, new business line, new activities, each of which creates a new brand opportunity for a challenger. They won't necessarily be able to seize it, and in many cases they'll be competing with those legacy brands for those same areas.

即便大公司处理重要复杂事务时会选择可信伙伴，但在开拓新领域时往往也需要挑战者品牌的新锐洞察。顶级品牌遵循幂律分布——除了刚才列举的那些，行业里还有成百上千的长尾玩家。在这种快速变革的恐惧期，头部品牌有机会巩固地位，而长尾传统玩家将举步维艰，除非他们实现高度专业化。

But there are many times that even if a big company wants to work with a trusted partner on important, complex, and high level issues, they also might want the new energy and insight from a challenger for a new frontier that they're pushing into. Now when we're talking about top tier brands, we're really talking about a power law distribution. For all those companies that I just rattled off, there are hundreds if not thousands of others that are part of the industry long tail. I think in these types of moments where transformation is scary and happening fast, the top tier of brands have a chance to reinforce and even extend their position, but the long tail of legacy players is going to struggle. What can change that is of course hyper specialization.

如果某家公司有精准定位，并能在新AI范式下成为该领域的'翻译者'，这对目标客户将极具价值。我认为极度垂直聚焦的定位，远比做泛泛的长尾玩家更有利。再谈谈交付——咨询业和其他行业都将面临AI降低交付成本、缩短交付周期的趋势，这点不言自明。

If a company has a really specific focus, and if they can then be the translator of that focus in this new AI paradigm, that's extremely valuable for the exact client or ICP that wants what they have to offer. Being extremely niche and narrow, but focused, is I think a much better position than being in the generalist long tail. Let's talk about delivery though. Something that I think is true for consulting and will be true for many other industries as well, is that AI is going to bring down the cost of delivery as well as speeding up the time of delivery. This one is pretty self explanatory.

无论你认为这是否会导致整个行业被颠覆，一个无可辩驳的事实是：信息收集可以更快、数据分析可以更迅捷、PDF生成可以大幅提速且耗费更少工时。这就引出了第五点：你最好相信客户会期待这些节省的成本以更低价格的形式回馈给他们。我认为，这正是关于'是否被颠覆'的讨论中最容易被忽视的重要细微差别之一。专业服务合作伙伴的使用是一个光谱。有时这些文章表现得好像要么你像往常一样将所有业务交给他们，要么你决定完全自主运营而不再使用任何外包服务。

Whether you think this leads to an industry being disrupted entirely or not, it is simply, absolutely, undeniably the case that information can be collected faster, data can be analyzed more swiftly, and PDFs can get created a heck of a lot faster with far fewer human hours. Which brings us to our fifth point: You better believe that customers are going to expect those savings to be passed on to them in the form of lower prices. This, I think, is one of the most important nuances that tends to get lost in this discussion of to be disrupted or not. Using professional services partners is a spectrum. And sometimes these articles seem to act like it's either you use them for everything in the same way you always have, or you've now decided that you're going to roll everything on your own and you use them for nothing.

现实当然会处于中间地带。当客户和企业最初探索他们希望与这类合作伙伴改变多少关系时，他们会很快期待看到服务提供方式的诸多改变——尤其是在成本方面。不久前，我与一家刚结束与其最大客户会谈的大型专业服务公司开会。在那场年度规划会议上，客户直截了当地表示：他们希望在新的一年获得完全相同的服务量，但价格要减半。我认为这类对话将会越来越普遍。

The reality of course will exist in the money middle. And one of the ways that customers and enterprises will move forward initially, as they explore just how much they want to change their relationship with these types of partners, is that they will very quickly expect to see changes in many parts of how those services are provisioned, but certainly in the form of cost. Not too long ago, I had a meeting with a large professional services company who had just gotten out of a conversation with their single biggest client. In that meeting, which was a planning meeting for the next year, the client told them in extremely simple terms that they expected that going into the next year, they would get all of the exact same amount of services and they wanted it at half the price. I think that sort of conversation is going to be increasingly common.

再次强调，这不仅发生在咨询行业，任何AI能降低成本并加速交付的行业都将如此。AI不是一次性项目，而是需要随技术演进的长期合作。Robots and Pencils与客户并肩工作，将实用AI引入每个阶段：自动化、个性化、决策支持和优化。他们通过应用实验验证可行性，并构建能放大人类潜能的系统。

And again, not just in the consulting industry, but in any industry, where again, AI is going to bring the cost down and speed delivery up. AI isn't a one off project. It's a partnership that has to evolve as the technology does. Robots and Pencils work side by side with clients to bring practical AI into every phase: automation, personalization, decision support, and optimization. They prove what works through applied experimentation, and build systems that amplify human potential.

作为拥有全球交付中心的AWS认证合作伙伴，Robots and Pencils将广泛覆盖与高触达服务相结合。当别人选择放手时，他们保持参与。因为合作不是项目计划，而是承诺。随着AI进步，他们的解决方案也将同步进化——这才是长期价值。

As an AWS certified partner with global delivery centers, robots and pencils combines reach with high touch service. Where others hand off, they stay engaged. Because partnership isn't a project plan it's a commitment. As AI advances, so will their solutions. That's long term value.

进步始于正确的合作伙伴。从robotsandpencils.com/aidailybrief开始了解Robots and Pencils。本节目由企业级自主软件开发平台Blitzy赞助，该平台具备无限代码上下文能力。Blitzy运用数千个专业AI代理，经过数小时思考来理解数百万行代码的企业级代码库。工程领导者们每个开发冲刺都从Blitzy平台开始，输入开发需求后，平台会提供计划并生成预编译代码。

Progress starts with the right partner. Start with robots and pencils at robotsandpencils.com/aidailybrief This episode is brought to you by Blitzy, the enterprise autonomous software development platform with infinite code context. Blitzy uses thousands of specialized AI agents that think for hours to understand enterprise scale code bases with millions of lines of code. Enterprise engineering leaders start every development sprint with the Blitzy platform, bringing in their development requirements. The Blitzy platform provides a plan then generates and pre compiles code for each task.

Blitzy能自主完成80%以上的开发工作，同时为剩余20%需要人工完成的部分提供指导。上市公司采用Blitzy作为IDE前开发工具后，工程速度提升了5倍。他们将其与首选编码助手配对，实现AI原生的软件开发生命周期。访问blitzy.com点击'获取演示'，了解如何将你的SDLC从AI辅助升级为AI原生。认识你的AI队友Robo——它通过AI搜索、聊天和代理释放团队潜力，你还可以用Studio构建专属代理。

Blitzy delivers 80% plus of the development work autonomously, while providing a guide for the final 20% of human development work required to complete the sprint. Public companies are achieving a 5x engineering velocity increase when incorporating Blitzy as their pre IDE development tool, pairing it with their coding pilot of choice to bring an AI native SDLC into their org. Visit blitzy.com and press Get a Demo to learn how Blitzy transforms your SDLC from AI assisted to AI native. Meet Robo, your AI powered teammate. Robo unleashes the potential of your team with AI powered search, chat, and agents, or build your own agent with Studio.

Robo由你组织的知识驱动，运行在Atlassian安全可信的平台上，始终与你的工作场景同步。将其连接到常用SaaS应用，确保知识永不遗漏。Robo基于Teamwork Graph运行——这是Atlassian的统一数据智能层，能整合所有应用数据并从第一天起提供个性化AI洞察。Robo已内置在Jira、Confluence及Jira服务管理（标准版/高级版/企业版）中。体验过AI从工具变成队友的感觉吗？

Robo is powered by your organization's knowledge and lives on Atlassian's trusted and secure platform, so it's always working in the context of your work. Connect Robo to your favorite SaaS app so no knowledge gets left behind. Robo runs on the Teamwork Graph, Atlassian's intelligence layer that unifies data across all of your apps and delivers personalized AI insights from day one. Robo is already built into Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management Standard, Premium, and Enterprise subscriptions. Know the feeling when AI turns from tool to teammate?

若你了解Robo，便知它。发现由Atlassian驱动的新AI队友Robo。请访问rov,asinvictory,0.com开始使用。若你正在开发语音AI产品，必须了解Assembly AI。他们构建了业界最优秀的语音转文本及语音理解模型。

If you Robo, you know. Discover Robo, your new AI teammate powered by Atlassian. Get started at rov,asinvictory,0.com. If you're building anything with Voice AI, you need to know about Assembly AI. They've built the best speech to text and speech understanding models in the industry.

诸如Granola、Dovetail、Ashby和Cluely等产品背后的静默基础设施。正如我此前所言，语音是AI最重要的交互模式之一——它是最自然的人机界面，我认为这将是下一波创新浪潮的核心。AssemblyAI的模型在准确性和质量上引领行业，让你能真正信赖产品所依托的数据。其语音理解模型不仅能实现转录，更能自动挖掘洞察、识别说话者并标记关键片段。

The quiet infrastructure behind products like Granola, Dovetail, Ashby, and Cluely. Now, as I've said before, voice is one of the most important modalities of AI. It's the most natural human interface, and I think it's a key part of where the next wave of innovation is going to happen. AssemblyAI's models lead the field in accuracy and quality so you can actually trust data your product is built on. And their speech understanding models help you go beyond transcription, uncovering insights, identifying speakers, and surfacing key moments automatically.

它以开发者优先为理念，无需合约，按需付费且轻松扩展。访问AssemblyAI.com/brief，领取50美元免费额度，立即开始构建你的语音AI产品。第六点：我们必须承认，即便在咨询行业被过度唱衰的当下，AI确实会接管部分传统咨询工作——那些易于自动化的程式化职能，以及某些后台事务类型。

It's developer first, no contracts, pay only for what you use, and scales effortlessly. Go to AssemblyAI dot com slash brief, grab $50 in free credits, and start building your Voice AI product today. Okay, number six. I think it is important to acknowledge that even in a world where many of the consultant disruption headlines are a little bit overblown, that there will be certain categories of work that consultants currently do that AI more or less just takes over. Certain rote functions that are easy to automate, Certain types of back office tasks.

无论具体表现如何，即便咨询行业持续发展甚至达到前所未有的繁荣，这个行业也必将与往昔不同——某些业务类别将彻底消失。当然另一方面，也将涌现出过去完全无法实现的全新能力。这里我不仅指全新的业务线（稍后会详述），更包括那些能彻底改变行业可能性的颠覆性操作方式。Super Intelligent就是这种变革的微小例证。以信息发现流程为例——这几乎是所有咨询项目的起点——任何信息收集方式（尤其是涉及人类信息时）都存在固有取舍。

Whatever the specifics are, it will be the case that even in a world where the consulting industry continues and even flourishes to a degree that it hasn't been able to before, it will not be exactly the same consulting industry that it once was, and there will be categories that are simply gone. The flip side, of course, is that there will also be entirely new capabilities that were simply impossible before. And in this case, I'm not just talking about totally new lines of business, which is something I'll talk about in a little bit, but just the ability to do something in a way that is radically different than what was possible before that really changes the landscape of the possible for those firms. Frankly, Super Intelligent lives in one tiny little example of this. When you think about an information discovery process, the type of thing that kicks off almost any consulting engagement, there are inherent trade offs in any way that you gather information, especially human information.

访谈能获取丰富背景信息但难以规模化；问卷调查便于扩展却缺乏深度。我们交付Agent Readiness Planning的核心前提在于：语音智能体让你无需在规模与深度间二选一——两者可兼得。

You can interview people, which is amazing for getting context, but it's terrible for scale. There's simply not enough time and not enough money to interview everyone that you'd actually want to. Now you can survey them, and that's great for scale, but it's not very good for context. The core premise of the way that we deliver Agent Readiness Planning is that voice agents make it so that you no longer have to choose between scale or context. You just get both.

过去访谈公司全员是不可能完成的任务，如今我们可同步完成并在一天内收工。不仅咨询和专业服务领域，各行各业中，那些消失的工作类别都将催生我们尚未见识的全新工作形态。再次强调现实：确有雄心勃勃的客户会利用AI绕过咨询顾问——就像Klarna等公司自研软件取代SaaS供应商。

Interviewing everyone in the company used to be an impossible task. Now we could do it all at the same time and have it done in a single day. Across not only consulting and professional services, but every industry, for all of the areas and categories of work that are just gone, there will be new capabilities that unlock totally new types of work that we simply don't see yet. Now again, on the theme of being real, it is the case, and we should acknowledge, that some ambitious clients will use AI to cut consultants out. I mean, we even see some companies like Klarna rolling their own software to cut SaaS providers out.

必然会有企业审视其专业服务网络后表示：借助AI，我们现在能自主完成这些工作。但另一方面，正如所述，随着AI降低服务成本（客户必然要求这部分销售成本下降），也将吸引新客户入场——当前许多因成本考量无法与麦肯锡、毕马威等大公司合作的企业将获得机会。因此即便部分企业选择自主创新（这一定会发生），服务交付总成本的下降仍将催生专业服务领域的新客户和增量需求。

It will absolutely be the case that some enterprises will look across the suite of their professional and partner relationships and say, we can just do that now, thanks to AI. But once again, there is a flip side. The cost coming down, those costs that as we said, customers will demand come down as the cost of goods sold, thanks to AI, comes down, also opens up the possibility to bring new customers online. There are, right now, many enterprises who would like to work with a McKinsey or a KPMG or another big firm, but who can't really consider it because of the cost profile. So even if, yes, there are some firms that decide to go be ambitious and do this themselves, which there absolutely will be, the reduced overall cost of services delivery will likely come down enough that there will be first time buyers or expansionary buyers of professional services as well.

我认为一个非常基本的观点，也是需要记住的重要一点是：在许多（甚至大多数）情况下，人工智能不会改变根本的需求动态。我的意思是，专业服务的存在并非因为企业无法具备这些能力，而是源于专业化——这是我们经济的基础原则之一。有些领域是企业不愿专攻的，比如它们并不想精通税务合规。

I think one really fundamental note, an important thing to remember, is that in many, if not most cases, AI won't change underlying demand dynamics. And what I mean by that is that professional services don't exist because enterprises couldn't have those capabilities. It's because of specialization, one of the foundational principles to our economy. There are areas where firms don't want to specialize. They don't want to have to be great at tax compliance.

在许多情况下，企业也不愿精通市场营销。专业服务的存在并非因为企业理论上无法完成这些专业服务公司的工作，而是因为企业不愿分散精力去做这些与其核心业务无关的事情。我不认为人工智能会大幅改变这一点。正如我所说，它的影响更可能体现在对速度和成本等预期的改变上。

In many cases, they don't want to have to be great at marketing. Professional services exist not because companies couldn't theoretically do the things that those professional services firms do. They exist because companies don't want to them because they're distracting from whatever it is the main thing that the company actually is meant to do. I don't see AI changing that very much. Like I said, I think its impact is much more likely to be around expectations for things like speed and cost.

如果我们理解企业仍会因差异化专业能力而选择与专业服务公司合作，那么同样明显的是：作为一个可能被颠覆的行业，更快采用那些可能埋下自我毁灭种子的工具确实具有实际价值。纵观咨询和专业服务行业的历史，它们始终是企业界最激进的早期采用者。没有哪家大型咨询或专业服务公司不在同时思考如何将AI作为内部变革指令和外部转型力量。我认为，那些看似最容易被AI颠覆的行业，与那些最快行动起来研究如何利用AI转型的行业之间将存在直接关联——它们要在被颠覆之前率先进化成该行业的下一代形态。同样重要的是要记住：除了像SUPER这样能帮助企业更快、更大规模进行探索的新能力外，未来必将出现我们目前甚至无法想象的全新商业类别。

And if we grok with the idea that companies are still going to want to work with professional services firms because of that differentiated specialization, it is also very clearly the case that there is real value as a potentially disruptable industry in faster adoption of the tools that might sow the seeds of your own destruction. And certainly if you look at the story of consulting and professional services, these are some of the most aggressive early adopters across the enterprise sector. There is not a single big consulting firm or professional services firm that is not thinking about AI both as an internal change mandate and as an external transformation force at the same time. I think that there is going to be a direct correlation between the industries where it most seems like AI could disrupt them, and which industries get out the fastest to figure out how to leverage AI to turn into whatever the next version of that industry is before they get disrupted. It's also important to remember that beyond just new capabilities, like SUPER's ability to help companies do discovery faster and on a much more expansive scale, There really will be entirely new categories of business that we just don't even know exist yet.

在所有行业中，咨询和专业服务可能最直观地体现了这一点——AI转型本身已成为一项服务，并且是许多（甚至大多数）这类公司四年前还不存在的高增长核心业务。重要的不是这项具体业务，而是在任何创造性破坏的过程中，我们总是先看到破坏，后看到创造——但创造终将不可避免地到来。所以正如你们所见，我并不认为咨询和专业服务会从地球上消失，但它们将面临巨大压力：必须快速进化迭代，包括服务提供方式、交付速度、服务品类，尤其是服务成本。

Now, of all industries, consulting and professional services may have the clearest example of this right away in the fact that AI transformation is now a service and a very important high growth service for many, if not most of these firms that didn't exist four years ago. What I think is important is not that particular line of business, but the fact that in any process of creative destruction, ultimately we see the destruction much sooner than we see the creation. But there will be, inevitably, creation as well. So as you can tell, I do not think that consultants and professional services are going to be wiped off the face of the planet. I think that there are going to be extraordinary pressures on them to evolve and iterate very quickly in terms of how they provision their services, the speed with which they deliver those services, the lines of services they offer, and more than anything else, the cost at which they deliver them.

但我认为这个行业不会消亡。不过，虽然行业会持续存在，并不意味着现有企业能填补所有空白。无论它们行动多快、如何试图抢占所有领域，总会有某些工作类别是现有企业无法达到市场要求的水平，这就为颠覆者创造了巨大机会。以我看来最明显的领域（虽然可能得罪我的咨询公司朋友们）就是真正的最后一公里技术交付与集成——大公司里虽有优秀的技术专家和开发者，但他们并非原生AI工程师。

But I don't think they're going away. However, just because I don't think they're going away does not mean I think that incumbents will be able to fill all of the gaps. As fast as they try to move, and as much as they want to claim all these areas, there will be categories of work that existing firms just aren't going to be as good at as the market demands, and that creates big opportunities for disruptors. The very obvious one to me, at the risk of alienating all of my big consulting firm friends, is actual last mile tech delivery and integration. There are some great technologists and developers who work inside the big firms, but they are not AI native engineers.

目前这些大公司仍能赢得最后一公里实施类项目，仅仅因为企业觉得别无选择。而挑战者们目前规模太小、资历太浅。但我认为这种情况会迅速改变。在这个特定领域，正涌现出完全由原生AI工程师组成的新锐公司——这些工程师如果转变方向，本可能为像我们这样的初创公司开发智能体，但他们选择加入了这些新兴的智能体开发工作室。这类公司将极速成长，随着规模扩大，会有更多企业选择它们，因为其大规模部署能力在增强，而更多项目经验、更高营收和更庞大的作品集也在持续提升可信度。

Right now, those big firms are still winning last mile implementation and engineering type of deals, but only because enterprises feel like they don't have any other choices. The contender firms so far are simply too small and too fresh. But I think that that's going to change very quickly. In this one specific category, there is an entire new legion of firms that are totally peopled with AI native engineers who, if their priorities changed, would be building agents for some startup like us, but who happen to have made themselves available in the context of these new Latter Day agentic dev shops, and those companies are going to grow extremely fast. What's more, the more scale they get, the more enterprises they'll tip over into being able to work with them because of their increased capability to deal with at scale deployments and growing credibility that comes from more experience, bigger revenue numbers, and a bigger body of work.

重申一次，具体细节不如这个普遍规律重要：正如我们在咨询业和其他知识型行业所见，现有企业确实拥有诸多优势，进入新时代时它们也有顺风助力。但这不意味着它们能填补所有空白，它们要么主动培育这些领域，要么找到与颠覆者合作的方式。既然这是关于咨询业的演讲，我们最后必须把它转化成路线图，对吧？

Now again, the specifics don't matter as much here as the fact of the general lesson. That as we've seen both for consultants and in many other knowledge worker type industries, there are actually a lot of advantages that incumbents have. There are tailwinds for them going into this new era. But that doesn't mean that they'll be able to fill all the gaps, and they'll either have to seed those areas, or find a way to co op the disruptors. So this being a presentation about consulting, we have to close by turning it into a roadmap, right?

如果你是专业服务公司，正在思考AI和智能代理的未来，请别担心：仅仅因为AI就注定被颠覆的可能性很小。但你可以采取一些措施确保不仅生存，还能蓬勃发展。如果你不是家喻户晓的大公司，就找到你独特且擅长的细分领域，并理解AI对该领域的影响。无论公司大小，都要强化品牌和长期积累的资产优势，这些能让你成为现有合作客户信赖的伙伴。实际上，或许我该说'强化信任'比'强化品牌'更重要。

If you are a professional services firm thinking about your AI and agentic future, fear not: it is very unlikely that just because of AI alone, you are doomed to disruption. However, there are some things you can do to make sure that you not only survive but thrive. If you are not some huge everyone knows you type of company, find the niche where you are unique and excel and understand the AI implications for that niche. Whether you're a little company or a big company, lean into brand and the assets that you've built over time that make you a trusted partner for the companies you already work with. In fact, I probably should say lean into trust even more than lean into brand.

在强化优势的同时，要尽可能快速拥抱AI。即使你提供的核心服务未来会变化，现在就有机会比所有合作企业领先两到三步，帮他们实现所在领域的AI转型。但做好这件事的第一步是让自己先实现AI化。其次，不要逆势而行——你必须预期成本会下降。

As you're doing that leaning in, move as fast as you possibly can to AI yourself. Even if the core thing that you sell is going to change over time, there's an opportunity right now to be two or three steps ahead of all the enterprises that you work with and just help them AI ify whatever domain that you work in. But the first step to doing that well is AI ifying yourself. Next, do not fight the tide. You have to expect cost to come down.

当然要尽量控制成本，但AI将降低几乎所有知识服务的交付成本，你必须据此重新设计业务。在根据成本下降调整定位时，要留意新业务线——不仅是现有服务的高效交付方式，更要关注可能塑造未来十年业务的新领域。最后，要将'自知竞争者可能比你行动更快、做得更好'这种谦卑转化为武器——收购他们。因为传统企业拥有初创公司不具备的优势：资产负债表，以及更丰富的信贷、股权和债务资源。

By all means, try to get away with as little of that as you can, but AI is going to bring the cost of delivery of almost all knowledge services down, and you're going to have to redesign around that. As you're positioning accordingly with those cost reductions in mind, keep your eyes out for those new business lines. Not just the more efficient way to deliver what you're already doing, but the new areas that could be the thing that shapes your business for the next decade. And lastly, weaponize the humility of knowing that there will be challengers who can move faster than you and do things better than you and buy them. Because legacy companies have one other thing that most upstarts don't, which is a balance sheet and access to more credit, equity, and debt than those new companies coming up.

用谦卑作武器，收购那些在AI新时代重要细分领域比你更强的公司。正如我所说，这表面上是关于咨询和专业服务，但我认为你会看到这种AI颠覆模式在许多其他领域上演。它将会如人们预期的那样深刻变革——甚至更甚。但变革会以怪异、锯齿状、不可预测且不均衡的方式发生，给我们和组织带来惊喜与挑战，最终极度青睐学习最快、策略最灵活、运营最敏捷的玩家。总之，我很高兴有机会跳出日常做这类深度思考节目。

Weaponize humility and buy companies that are better than you at whatever niches you think are important in this new AI world. So like I said, this is nominally all about consulting and professional services, but I do think that you're going to see these patterns of what AI disruption actually looks like play out in a lot of other areas as well. It is going to be as profound and transformative as everyone thinks, if not more. But it's going to do so in weird, jagged, unpredictable, uneven ways that surprise and stretch us and our organizations and will put a very, very high premium on the fastest learners, the most dynamic strategies, and the most nimble operators. Anyways, guys, I love having a chance to zoom out and do Thinky Think episodes like this.

希望你也喜欢这期内容。如果不感兴趣，很快我们就会回归新闻栏目——AI通常不会给我太多理论探讨的时间。感谢各位听众观众一如既往的支持，下次见，祝安好。

Hopefully you enjoyed it as well. If not, I'm sure we'll be back to the news very soon. AI tends not to give me much of a chance to be theoretical for long. Appreciate you listening or watching as always, and until next time, peace.