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The Morning Download: Are AI Consultants Worth It?
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What's up: Microsoft and OpenAI said they have reached a deal to extend their partnership; AI startup founders tout a winning formula; IBM chases 'quantum advantage'
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Illustration: Thomas R. Lechleiter/WSJ
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Greg Meyers, chief digital and technology officer at Bristol-Myers Squibb, and one of the primary sources in our original reporting, may have assessed the future of the industry best: “The real story here isn’t extinction, it's differentiation.”
Some consultants will remain the oft-lampooned “PowerPoint warriors telling everyone what they already know at $750 an hour,” he wrote. Others will, “bring C-Suites and Boards the outside perspective that sparks urgency for organizational change.”
It’s more important than ever that corporate tech leaders can tell the difference, and cut through the FOMO marketing. “AI and automation are rapidly eroding both the need to buy capacity from outsiders and the price/value of capacity we do buy,” Meyers wrote.
He suggests working with consultants who charge not in hours but in outcomes, and making sure they are clear about how they use generative AI for internal efficiencies and how they intend to pass that benefit on to customers.
Ruth Callaghan, director at Australian communications firm Purple, wrote to the WSJ Leadership Institute with some of her own thoughts as well:
“If you are in the market for a consultant of any kind, ask them straight up about their AI aptitude and advice. Can they defend their choice of model? Will they bring you along so you gain value from the AI problem-solving as well as its output? Will they help share lessons with your team to skill up? Collaborative AI work is far more valuable than one brain and a set of pre-written prompts. If they demur or gatekeep, that tells you a lot.”
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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CISO Essentials: Strengthening Cross-Functional Relationships
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Cybersecurity doesn’t exist in a bubble. That’s why CISOs, even new ones, should have a hand in helping other leaders view cybersecurity risk as a shared, organizationwide responsibility. Read More
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said some AI startups and investors will ‘get burned.’ Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg
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Consider ... OpenAI in the past nine months has committed to spend around $60 billion a year for computing from Oracle, shell out $18 billion on a data-center venture, build a new mass-market AI-hardware device and purchase $10 billion of customized chips. At the same time, the company loses billions a year, the Journal reports.
What's the answer? More paying users, for one. The company itself expects that corporations will continue paying for more advanced features. Many OpenAI backers see little reason for concern.
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Nico Laqua, founder of Corgi, an AI financial-infrastructure firm, said two-thirds of early employees have Corgi tattoos. Photo: Eli Imadali for WSJ
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Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?
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For a certain subset of young entrepreneurs in San Francisco, Friday and Saturday nights (and Sunday and Monday, etc.) are best spent building customer-support chatbots, talking funding rounds and scarfing modern-day MREs over the laptop.
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To outsiders, founder life might appear joyless—young people chasing their fortunes in one of America’s most picturesque cities without taking time to explore it, living on prepackaged meals eaten hunched at their computers. Yet for many, this is what it takes.
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By the WSJ's Katherine Bindley, Xavier Martinez and Rebecca Picciotto
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The AI work/life fever dream repackaged for TV
Thanks to ever-shifting performance metrics, smart-food snack stations and new digital office assistants, work has never been weirder. Hollywood is on it with "Serverance" and 'The Studio" favored at the Emmys this Sunday.
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Models of the multitiered chandeliers inside IBM Quantum System Two. Photo: Annie Zhao
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Alibaba’s shares surged as investors cheered the Chinese tech giant’s recent series of moves to boost AI development and stay ahead of the race, WSJ reports. On Thursday it released its latest AI model Qwen3-Next, optimized for long-text understanding and substantially lower training cost.
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Counting on new AI projects to reverse flagging revenue growth, Indian IT services firm Infosys has announced plans to buy back as much as $2 billion worth of shares, Bloomberg reports.
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An AI dubbed Diella will run public procurement in Albania, helping make the nation a place where public tenders are “100 percent incorruptible,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said Thursday, according to Politico.
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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The U.S. government’s immigration raid on Hyundai Motor’s Georgia battery plant site will set back construction by two or three months, according to Chief Executive José Muñoz. (WSJ)
Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced former President Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison after finding him guilty of plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election. (WSJ)
Ten Democratic Senators are calling for a congressional hearing about JPMorgan Chase’s decision to keep Jeffrey Epstein as a bank client for about 15 years. (WSJ)
The search for the person who killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been particularly plagued by slow, confusing and contradictory disclosures from public officials. (WSJ)
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