✳ Customertimes · Strategy
Navigating an
AI-First World
How consulting and enterprise software delivery must adapt when code becomes a commodity and adoption becomes the value.
8 ideas→1 thesis
01
Traditional consulting utilization is breaking
- Knowledge workers now produce the same output in a fraction of the time using AI.
- They are still billed as if working full-time — straining the hours-and-utilization model.
- The economics of "selling time" no longer reflect the value delivered.
02
Build AI-native delivery teams in each practice
- Small, dedicated groups inside every technology practice that learn by doing.
- Continuously experiment with AI-driven implementation and migration approaches.
- Large firms have spent ~18 months testing whether AI can replace or radically simplify enterprise implementations.
03
Open source as a go-to-market strategy
- Open-source accelerators, migration tools, and frameworks; publish code, demos, and prototypes.
- Let customers and partners use them freely.
- Monetize consulting, customization, adoption, migration, and support — not the software itself.
Code is becoming a commodity; adoption and change management stay hard and valuable.
04
The real value shifts from coding to adoption
- AI makes software development dramatically cheaper.
- Building software is no longer the hard problem.
- The hard problem is helping organizations adopt, integrate, and operationalize it.
Stakeholder management, training, process redesign, and change become worth more than coding.
05
Partner with AI vendors — especially Cursor
- Align closely with AI vendors such as Cursor, and potentially Anthropic.
- Create AI-driven migration offerings; show how systems can be rebuilt with AI tools.
- Become their implementation and adoption partner.
- Use vendor endorsement as a source of leads and credibility.
06
Replace expensive enterprise software with AI-generated alternatives
- Prove that many enterprise apps can be rebuilt at a fraction of the cost.
- Not just implementing platforms more efficiently — replacing them.
ITSM
Salesforce
Marketing Cloud
ServiceNow
07
Shift internal focus from products to knowledge sharing
- Stop obsessing over building perfect products.
- Share successful AI experiments openly; publish code and lessons internally and externally.
- Create fast feedback loops where teams exchange working patterns.
08
Strategic concern: missing the AI platform wave
- Worry that opportunities with Anthropic and other major AI ecosystems may have been missed.
- Cursor seen as a more accessible partner with stronger near-term go-to-market.
- Attaching to a fast-growing AI platform could generate significant demand.
✳ Main conclusion
Software implementation is becoming commoditized by AI — while enterprise adoption, transformation, and business-process expertise become the new source of value.
✳ The proposed response
From configuring software to leading AI-driven change
- 1 Build AI-first delivery capabilities.
- 2 Open source much of the implementation IP.
- 3 Partner closely with AI vendors.
- 4 Sell migration, adoption & transformation — not development hours.
- 5 Help enterprises navigate AI-driven change.