The Weekly Waypoint: The AI Consulting Gold Rush Is On

The Weekly Waypoint, Issue #7

Something wild is happening right now. Companies are spending real money on AI, but they don't know what they're buying. Consultants who understand AI are commanding premium rates. And the gap between "knows AI" and "doesn't know AI" has never been wider.

This week: the AI consulting boom, what it means for your career (even if you're not a consultant), and how to make sure you're on the right side of the divide.

This Week's Big Story: The $50K AI Audit

What happened: A mid-size marketing agency paid $50K this week for an "AI Readiness Audit", basically a consultant spending 3 days looking at their workflows and saying "here's where AI can help, here's what to do first, and here's what it'll cost."

The detail that matters: The audit itself was good. The recommendations were solid. But the deliverable was a 15-page PowerPoint and a 1-hour call. That's $50K for work the consultant says took about 20 hours, with AI doing 60% of the research and analysis.

Why it matters: This isn't a one-off. Companies everywhere are paying premium prices for AI guidance because they're scared of falling behind and they don't know who to trust. The demand for "someone who understands AI" far exceeds the supply of people who actually do.

The pricing reality check:

Generic "AI consultant": $150-250/hour
"AI consultant for healthcare": $500-1,000/hour
"AI consultant who helped 3 hospitals implement agentic AI": $2,000-5,000/hour

Specificity = premium. Always.

Not a Consultant? This Still Applies to You

In your career: The person in your office who understands AI is the person getting pulled into every important meeting. They're not the smartest person in the room, they're the most useful person in the room.

The career move: Don't just "use AI." Be the person who shows others how to use AI. Run a 30-minute "AI tool of the week" session for your team. It takes almost no time, and you become indispensable.

In job interviews: "I use ChatGPT sometimes" = forgettable. "I implemented an AI-powered reporting workflow that saved my team 15 hours/week" = you're hired.

If you're a manager: Your team is either using AI secretly (and inconsistently) or not using it at all. Either way, you should know. Ask this week: "Who's using AI tools for their work? What's working? What's not?" You'll learn a lot.

New Tools and Updates This Week

Google I/O happened. Big takeaways:

Gemini 2.5 Flash, Fast and cheap. Free tier handles most daily tasks. This is Google's play for the mass market.
Gemini for Google Workspace, AI built into Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Gmail. Competes directly with Microsoft Copilot. If your company uses Google, this just became relevant.
Project Astra, Google's "AI that can see and hear." Point your phone camera at something and ask questions. It sees, understands, and responds in real-time. Demo was impressive. Real-world usefulness TBD.

Anthropic launched "Claude for Research", A specialized version that can search academic papers, cite sources properly, and generate literature reviews. Researchers: this is your new best friend.

Zapier AI Actions, Zapier now has AI built into every automation. Instead of rigid "if X then Y" rules, you can say "if the email sounds like a complaint, escalate it." The AI understands context, not just keywords.

Practical: The 15-Minute AI Resume Boost

Whether you're job hunting or not, this takes 15 minutes and the result is immediately useful:

Open Claude or ChatGPT
Paste your current resume
Ask: "Rewrite this resume to be more impactful. Use strong action verbs, quantify results where possible, and highlight AI-related skills or projects. Keep it under 2 pages."
Compare the two versions side by side. The AI version will likely have:
- Stronger action verbs ("Spearheaded" vs "Helped with")
- Quantified results where you used vague language
- Better structure and formatting
Take the best parts of both. It's your resume, AI just helps you see it differently.

Not job hunting? Do the same thing with your LinkedIn profile. Most profiles are painfully generic. AI can make yours specific and compelling in 10 minutes.

The Fun Stuff

Consultant charged $20K to tell a company to "use ChatGPT", The deliverable was literally a PDF that said "Subscribe to ChatGPT Pro ($20/month) and try these 5 prompts." The company felt robbed. The consultant said "you're welcome." Both are right, the advice was obvious to some, transformative to others.
AI-generated job descriptions are scaring off candidates, Companies using AI to write job postings are producing descriptions so generic and buzzword-heavy that good candidates skip them. "Seeking a results-driven synergistic ninja", nobody wants to be that.
The "AI did my performance review" confession, A manager admitted on Reddit that they used Claude to write all 12 of their direct reports' performance reviews. The reviews were detailed, specific, and better than what they'd written manually. The confession went viral. HR departments are now officially nervous.

What I'm Watching Next Week

Microsoft Build is next week. Expect Copilot Studio updates (letting non-technical people build AI agents), and likely a "Copilot for Education" launch to compete with Anthropic's recent education push.

Also: Apple is reportedly in talks with Anthropic and OpenAI about deeper Siri integration. If Siri gets a real AI brain behind it, 2 billion iPhone users suddenly have a competent AI assistant in their pocket. That's the largest AI deployment in history if it happens.

Deep Dive This Week

Pro members go deeper: "The AI Consultant Handbook: Landing $10K+ Engagements", the complete guide to positioning, pricing,, and deliver AI consulting engagements. We covered the market dynamics this week; the deep dive covers the exact proposal templates, scope frameworks, and client management strategies that turn one project into a retainer.

Upgrade to Pro →

Everyone's looking for someone who understands AI. The question is: when they find you, will you be ready?

- James

P.S. - Are you the "AI person" at your office? Or do you work with one? Reply and tell me what that looks like in practice. Real stories help everyone.