Do you need an AI consultant? When it's worth it, and when it isn't
An honest guide to hiring an AI consultant: when outside help pays for itself, when an off-the-shelf tool is enough, what to look for and the red flags.
I'm an AI consultant, so take this with that in mind. But a lot of businesses spend money on AI help they don't need, and some struggle on alone when a few weeks of the right help would save months. Here's how to tell which one you are.
When an AI consultant is worth it
- You have a real problem but no AI experience in-house. You know what hurts; you don't know what's possible, what it costs to run, or how to tell if it's working.
- You need a go or no-go before spending properly. A short, scoped idea phase is much cheaper than discovering halfway through a build that the idea doesn't hold.
- Your developers can build, but haven't shipped AI. Evaluation, prompt design, retrieval and cost control are learnable, but slow to learn on a live product.
- The product and the sales plan need to fit together. What you build should be shaped by who will buy it and why; that's hard to do across separate agencies.
When it isn't
- An off-the-shelf tool already does the job. Before hiring anyone, try the AI assistants and the AI features built into tools you already pay for. If they cover the job, you're done.
- The real problem is a process problem. If the work is slow because nobody owns it or the steps keep changing, AI will make a messy process faster and messier.
- You want "AI" because competitors have it. Without a specific problem to solve, you'll pay for a demo, not a product.
What to look for
- Things in production. Ask to see live products, not slides.
- Talk of evaluation and failure. A good consultant will ask what happens when the AI is wrong before promising what it does when it's right.
- Fixed scope and fixed price per phase, so you can stop after any phase with something useful in hand.
- You own the result: the code, the accounts and the documentation, with no platform you have to rent forever.
- Willingness to say no. The most valuable answer in an intro call is sometimes "you don't need this".
Red flags
- A long "AI transformation" roadmap before anyone has looked at a real task.
- Guaranteed accuracy figures before seeing your data.
- No mention of running costs per request or per month.
- Your product locked into the consultant's own platform.
- Strategy from one person, delivery handed to someone you've never met.
Questions to ask in the first call
- What would you need to see to tell me this isn't worth building?
- How will we know it's working? What will you measure?
- What will it cost to run each month at our volume?
- What do I own at the end of each phase?
- Who actually does the work?
How DevTrust works
DevTrust is founder-led: the person who scopes your idea is the person who designs it, builds it and plans how it sells. Work runs in phases (idea, design, build, go-to-market), each with a written scope and a fixed price, and you can stop after any of them. The first call is free and gives you an honest read on whether AI fits. See how an engagement runs, or read the FAQ.