Most AI Consultants Are Bullshitting You. Here's How to Spot Them.
There's a gold rush happening in AI consulting right now. Everyone's an expert. Everyone's got a framework. Everyone's promising transformation.
Most of it is noise.
I say this as someone who now does AI consulting. I've sat in enough meetings to know when someone's actually done the work versus when they're regurgitating ChatGPT's output back at you with a confident smile.
Here's how to spot the difference.
The red flags
They can't explain it simply
Real expertise means you can explain complex things in plain English. If someone's drowning you in jargon ("agentic workflows", "multimodal pipelines", "retrieval-augmented generation") without ever grounding it in your actual problem, they're probably hiding behind the words.
Ask them to explain it like you're a smart 12-year-old. Watch what happens.
They promise transformation in weeks
AI adoption done well is slow. It's messy. It involves changing how people work, not just plugging in a new tool.
Anyone promising you'll "transform your business with AI in 6 weeks" is either lying or selling you something so shallow it won't stick.
They've never built anything
This is a big one. Ask what they've actually shipped. Not advised on. Not consulted for. Built.
Lots of AI consultants have read the docs, watched the YouTube videos, maybe done a weekend course. Very few have wrestled with the reality of putting AI into production. The edge cases, the failures, the "why is it saying that?" moments at 2am.
Their case studies are suspiciously vague
"We helped a Fortune 500 company improve efficiency by 40%."
Cool. How? What did you actually do? What went wrong? What would you do differently?
Vague case studies are a sign someone's either exaggerating or wasn't close enough to the work to know the details.
They lead with the technology
Good consultants start with your problem. Bad ones start with the solution they're selling.
If someone's pitching you "an AI strategy" before they've understood your business, your customers, and where you're actually struggling? Run.
The green flags
They ask uncomfortable questions
The best consultants I've worked with made me think. They asked why we were doing things. They challenged assumptions. They weren't just there to agree with us.
If someone's nodding along to everything, they're not consulting. They're flattering.
They've failed publicly
Sounds counterintuitive, but I trust people who can talk openly about what went wrong. AI projects fail all the time. Anyone pretending otherwise hasn't done enough of them.
They're specific about limitations
AI isn't magic. It's good at some things and terrible at others. Someone who's honest about where AI won't help you is someone worth listening to.
They focus on the people, not just the tech
The hardest part of AI adoption isn't the models. It's getting people to actually use them. It's changing workflows. It's building trust.
Good consultants know this. They'll spend as much time talking about change management as they do about prompts and fine-tuning.
What to ask before you hire
Here's my shortlist:
- What have you actually built with AI? Not advised on. Built.
- What's a project that failed? What did you learn?
- How do you measure success? If it's just "engagement" or "adoption", push harder.
- What shouldn't we use AI for? If they can't answer this, they don't know the tech well enough.
- What's your honest timeline? Then double it. That's probably closer to reality.
The uncomfortable truth
Some of the best AI work happening right now is being done by people inside companies, not consultants. People who understand the domain, have access to the data, and can iterate quickly.
External help can accelerate things. But it can't replace internal capability.
If a consultant's plan doesn't include building your team's skills and eventually making themselves redundant, they're not setting you up for success. They're setting up a retainer.
Wrapping up
The AI hype is real. So is the opportunity. But there's a lot of money being wasted on consultants who are better at selling than delivering.
Do your homework. Ask hard questions. And remember: the best people in this space are usually too busy doing the work to be on LinkedIn every day telling you about it.