AI Strategy vs Consulting
AI strategy without the six-month engagement.
A traditional Big 4 or strategy-house AI engagement runs to around six months and $350,000. Mireto reaches the same strategic clarity faster: a research engine scores your AI disruption exposure across eight dimensions, then you or an advisory partner build the strategy on top of it.
The short version
A Big 4 engagement buys you rigour, brand confidence and board credibility, at the cost of months and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mireto encodes the same kind of rigour into a platform and pairs it with a partner who reviews and signs off the result. You keep the credibility and lose the wait.
This is not a claim that software replaces judgement. It is a claim that the assembly work, the research, the scoring, the drafting, no longer needs a six-month bespoke engagement to be done well. See what a complete AI strategy includes.
The Two Routes
Two routes to the same clarity
The traditional route assembles a bespoke team that researches your organisation, builds the analysis from a blank page and presents a report at the end. It is thorough. It is also slow, expensive and staffed differently every time, so the quality tracks whoever is on your account.
The platform route runs the same analytical work through a calibrated engine. Your exposure is scored across eight weighted dimensions against real evidence about your organisation, your peers and your industry, then an advisory partner reviews the output and signs it off under their own brand. The method is identical from one engagement to the next.
Side by Side
Big 4 engagement vs Mireto
The $350,000 and six-month figures are indicative, based on publicly observable rate cards for engagements scoped as AI strategy or AI readiness work. Individual quotes vary above and below this range.
The Output
What you actually get
A consulting engagement typically ends with a single report. A Complete AI Strategy is delivered as five connected deliverables, each answering a different part of the strategic question, and together forming the board-ready package your organisation can act on.
01
AI Disruption Snapshot
Scores your exposure across eight dimensions and names where the disruption is sharpest, with the threats and opportunities behind each.
02
AI Disruption Analysis
The deep diagnostic: industry context, business-model exposure, workforce impact and where you are most vulnerable.
03
AI Strategy Canvas
A one-page synthesis of your strategic thesis, priority initiatives, capability gaps and the outcomes that define success.
04
AI Transformation Roadmap
A sequenced plan across the initiatives that matter, with dependencies and owners.
05
AI Executive Presentation
A board-ready synthesis of the analysis, canvas and roadmap, formatted for an executive read.
An Honest Line
Where a full consulting engagement still fits
Large-scale, hands-on transformation programmes still call for a consulting firm on the ground: change management across thousands of people, system integration, and the year-long delivery that follows a strategy. Mireto does not do that work, and does not pretend to.
What Mireto owns is the layer before it: the assessment and the strategy, fast and evidence-based, so whatever you do next starts from a clear picture rather than a blank page. For many organisations that is the layer where a six-month, $350,000 engagement is hardest to justify, and easiest to replace.
Common Questions
AI strategy vs consulting FAQ
Is Mireto a replacement for management consultants?
No. Mireto owns the layer before implementation: the assessment and the strategy. Large-scale, hands-on transformation programmes still call for a consulting firm on the ground. Many advisory partners use Mireto to deliver that strategy layer for their own clients, faster and at a lower cost than building it from scratch.
How can it be faster without cutting corners?
The methodology is encoded into a platform. Eight-dimension scoring, calibrated frameworks and specialist AI Advisors do the assembly and drafting that a consulting team would otherwise do by hand, and the delivering partner reviews and signs off before release. The time saved is in assembly, not in rigour.
What does the Big 4 figure refer to?
Around six months and $350,000 is indicative of a scoped AI strategy or AI readiness engagement from a Big 4 or major strategy house, based on publicly observable rate cards. Individual quotes vary above and below this range, and none of it includes the implementation work that usually follows.
Who reviews the strategy before it is delivered?
The delivering advisory partner reviews and signs off every Complete AI Strategy before it reaches the client. Self-serve partners self-review after completing a one-time delivery-standards walkthrough. The review is positioned as a quality step, not a delay.
Is this only for Australian organisations?
No. The assessment is calibrated for organisations in Australia and the United States, with jurisdiction-appropriate regulators, peer benchmarks and policy frameworks applied to each.
Explore
Go deeper
What an AI strategy is →
The pillar hub: what it includes and how it is developed.
Methodology →
The frameworks, scoring rigour and evidence standards behind the analysis.
AI Disruption Score →
The 0 to 100 measure of how much pressure AI is placing on your business model.
Pricing →
Published, transparent pricing for every way in.
Start with an AI Disruption Snapshot.
The fast, evidence-based first step, with the strategy built from it.
Analyse my organisation →