10 AI Tools Every Consulting Firm Should Consider Using

By Justin Britt, Marketing Director at Deltek

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere these days. From healthcare, where it is used to improve patient outcomes, to the financial industry, where it’s used for risk assessment and trading. As a result, a steady flow of new AI tools is being announced every week. To highlight the power of AI, we asked Chat GPT, a chatbox developed by OpenAI, “What are 10 AI tools that every consulting firm should use?” The results included a number of data analysis and process automation technologies you have undoubtedly heard of – and maybe even a few you might want to look into.

Note that we are not endorsing or promoting any particular AI tool, and are merely recognizing the rapid growth of AI tools and highlighting the power of new AI tools currently being developed. It goes without saying, but a business should always carefully evaluate whether a new technology is appropriate given its own business, legal, and compliance needs. It is also important to understand that sharing confidential proprietary information with an AI tool could potentially put your IP rights and confidential information at risk. That said, there may be AI tools to help your consultancy improve efficiency, accuracy, and analytics. Without further ado, here is the list:

10 AI Tools Every Consulting Firm Should Consider

#1 ChatGPT: In a bit of self-promotion, ChatGPT chose to highlight itself as a productivity tool for consulting firms. It’s hard to argue against this “logic” as we used the tool to tells us about Ai tools. ChatGPT is a powerful AI-powered language model that can generate natural language responses to text-based queries. It can be integrated with various communication channels, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, to enhance customer service and support. Use cases for consulting firms include:

• Creating compelling ad copy
• Researching market trends
• Writing and validating basic code

#2 Frase.io: If you don’t have someone focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you might consider investing in it. Optimizing your online presence through SEO can elevate and differentiate your brand. Frase.io can help you do this. It is an AI-powered content optimization platform that can help consulting firms research, write and optimize content for their clients. It uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze content and suggest improvements based on SEO best practices. It can help you:

• Perform SEO analysis on existing content
• Find additional topics & keywords
• Help write webpage, landing pages and blog posts

#3 Copy.ai: Copy.ai is an AI-powered copywriting tool that can help consulting firms to generate high-quality content for their clients. It uses natural language processing and deep learning algorithms to analyze and understand the context of the content and produce relevant and engaging copy. Consulting firms are using this tool to help create sales copy, blog content, social media posts, and digital ad copy to name just a few use cases.

#4 Stockimag.ai: Stockimag.ai is an AI-powered image and video search engine that can help consulting firms to find high-quality and relevant images and videos for their clients. It uses computer vision and machine learning algorithms to analyze and understand the content of the images and videos and suggest the best matches. You might consider this tool if you are tired of using the same library of stock photos in your marketing and sales materials. This image was created using the Stockimag.ai tool with the prompt: “Show a list of top AI software tools on a computer monitor.”

Photo above was created using Stockimag.ai.

#5 Hootsuite Insights: Nearly 20 million people already use Hootsuite as a social media management platform to help build brand awareness and engage with customers and prospects. Hootsuite Insights is an AI-powered social media monitoring tool (sometimes called social listening) that can help consulting firms to track and analyze social media conversations about their clients. It uses natural language processing and sentiment analysis to identify trends, influencers, and customer feedback.

#6 IBM Watson: Watson is an AI platform that includes a range of tools for natural language processing, machine learning, and computer vision. Consulting firms use Watson to build and deploy AI applications in a range of industries, including healthcare, finance, and retail. In fact, Deltek uses IBM Watson in our Costpoint ERP software to help users to create and interpret BI content.

#7 Salesforce Einstein: Salesforce Einstein is an AI-powered CRM tool that can help consulting firms to manage and analyze customer data. It uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to automate and optimize sales and marketing activities. A few examples and use cases include:

• Helping predict the likelihood of a lead converting to a sale
• Answering routine customer service questions with chatbots
• Recommending products to customers similar to ones they have already purchased or viewed

#8 UiPath: UiPath is an AI-powered robotic process automation tool that can help consulting firms to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks. It uses machine learning and natural language processing to understand and perform complex workflows and processes.

#9 Grammarly Business: Need help finding spelling or punctuation mistakes? Can't quite find the right words to rephrase that run-on sentence? Grammarly Business might be for you. It is an AI-powered writing assistant tool that can help consulting firms to improve their written communication. It uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to identify and correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

#10 Tableau: Many large enterprises use Tableau to help them manage data and discover business insights, but the majority of Tableau users are companies with 50-200 employees, including many consulting firms. Tableau is an AI-powered data visualization tool that can help consulting firms to create interactive and insightful dashboards and reports. It uses machine learning algorithms to analyze and present data in a way that is easy to understand and use for decision-making.  

Summary: Always Remember GIGO

Although the list compiled by Chat GPT is far from exhaustive, it did feature a number of tools that many consulting firms (including Deltek) are already using and a few more that may be worth exploring. Some of the tools are free, and others may require licensing fees (and may contain legal terms that you should carefully review). I have found AI tools very useful for helping to formulate outlines and for topic discovery. However, as they say in computer science – GIGO! (garbage in, garbage out) – the more specific and nuanced you can be in your prompts, the better your answers will be.

Also, remember that the specific use cases from one organization may not apply to your organization, and you should always consider the business and legal consequences of any particular AI tool.

Also, always check with Legal (they made me say this).