In my essay last month for Strategic, Your value is not your timesheet, I argued that AI has dismantled the logic of billing by the hour for communication consultants. When machines compress research, monitoring and first-draft creation, time stops being a credible proxy for value.
Clients are not buying minutes – they are buying judgement, authority and outcomes. The practical implication is straightforward: treat AI as an enabler of quality and speed, then price the human parts that actually move reputations and decisions.
▪️ Buyers must defend advisory spend internally – outcomes are easier to justify than inputs.
▪️ AI makes speed and efficiency the minimum expectation – authority and accountability differentiate.
▪️ Price the end-state you help achieve – not minutes or reports.
▪️ Keep measurement light – a few leading indicators plus narrative evidence.
▪️ Treat AI as an enabler of quality – not a discount.
This article extends the argument from the consultant’s desk to the buyer’s table. The shift is not only about how we work; it is about how sponsors must defend advisory spend inside their organisations. Speed and efficiency are assumed. What wins approval now is accountable progress towards an end-state – outcomes a CFO can understand and a board can defend.
The buyer’s reality in 2026
Consider the pressures on your sponsor:
- Political risk – spend on advisory work is visible and contestable.
- Budget cycles – funds flow to programmes with clear end states, not open-ended activities.
- AI expectations – leaders are running their own experiments; they assume faster analysis and fewer hours.
- Auditability – finance teams want line-of-sight from spend to result.
Against that backdrop, hourly billing gives your sponsor a weak story. “We spent 80 hours” is not a decision; it is a diary entry. “We reduced decision time, averted a public issue, and improved leadership credibility” is the kind of assertion a sponsor can defend – if your framing and pricing point to it.
Why inputs no longer persuade
Inputs – time, volume, reports – once stood as proxies for value. In an AI-enabled practice, proxies fail.
- Time collapses – research, monitoring and first drafts compress dramatically.
- Volume misleads – more content or coverage often correlates with more noise, not more impact.
- Reports are not outcomes – they do not change stakeholder behaviour; decisions do.
When the proxy is unreliable, buyers look for something firmer – movement towards a defined end state. If our proposals and pricing are still organised around inputs, we are misaligned with how decisions are now made.
Outcomes as internal defensibility
Sponsors need a story they can defend upstream. Outcomes provide that spine. Three types are particularly persuasive in communication work:
- Decision quality and velocity
Did leaders make better calls, faster, with fewer reversals? Internally, this reads as reduced opportunity cost and lower execution risk. - Risk avoided or contained
Did we dampen an emerging issue, reduce misinformation spread, or shorten recovery time from an incident? Finance teams understand cost-of-risk even when attribution is imperfect. - Stakeholder trust and alignment
Did we improve understanding and credibility with employees, regulators, customers or investors? Trust is not a vanity metric when it links to compliance, productivity or market access.
If your fee model makes these outcomes explicit – and your narrative links the work to those ends – the invoice carries a story the sponsor can stand behind. That, more than anything, is why outcomes-oriented pricing is gaining traction.
Authority over speed
Speed is abundant. Authority is scarce. AI produces answers; advisers stand behind recommendations. The difference matters because organisations are not short of information. They lack an accountable interpretation.
When we price inputs, we implicitly sell labour. When we price outcomes, we take a position. The former is easy to question; the latter is easier to defend.
The end of the junior pyramid
If AI absorbs much of the junior production, the traditional leverage model loses meaning. The future feels smaller, more senior, and more oriented to judgement. That is not a lament; it is a chance to build firms that are honest about what they sell. Smaller teams, deeper expertise, clearer promises – and pricing that reflects stewardship rather than hours.
Buyers recognise this because it mirrors how they are restructuring internally: fewer layers between analysis and decision, more accountability for outcomes.
What needs to change in our posture
A few cultural shifts will help our profession match the buyer’s psychology:
- Lead with stakes, not scope – open with what is at risk or to be gained if we succeed; put scope in service of that.
- Make uncertainty explicit – outcomes are probabilistic; confidence intervals and assumptions build credibility, not doubt.
- Price the decision, not the document – if the document’s purpose is to enable a decision, say so – and price accordingly.
- Narrate attribution honestly – avoid claiming credit for everything; buyers trust advisers who draw boundaries around influence.
- Treat AI as an enabler, not a discount – explain how AI supports quality and responsiveness, then return to the outcome.
None of this requires a step-by-step manual to implement. It does require a shift in what we choose to emphasise. When we talk like this, outcomes-oriented pricing stops feeling novel. It feels like common sense.
A word on measurement without distortion
A practical stance:
- Combine leading indicators (issue response time, decision lag, alignment signals) with narrative evidence (stakeholder feedback, regulator posture, analyst notes).
- Keep a short list – a handful of measures and stories that speak to the stakes you named at the start.
- Review quarterly with your sponsor so the internal story evolves with the work.
This keeps the focus on whether we are moving towards the end state rather than on gaming metrics.
Why this matters now
The consulting market will continue to commoditise anything that can be automated. Our response should not be to fight for the proxy – more hours, more reports, more volume – but to stand for the outcome: better decisions, safer organisations, stronger trust.
When we align our pricing with that stance, we do more than change a line on an invoice. We make it easier for buyers to buy. We reduce internal friction. We say, with some humility, that we will be judged on where we help you get to, not on how long we took to get there.
That is a promise worth defending.
Further reading for readers who want tactics
- If you want a credible, concise “how-to” on having value conversations without defaulting to hours, Blair Enns offers a useful primer: Hacking The Value Conversation.
- For the broader case on why billable hours are failing in an AI-enabled practice, see my essay in Strategic: Your value is not your timesheet.
