Chase Hughes, founder and CEO of Pro Business Plans and ProAI, sits at the intersection of traditional business consulting and artificial intelligence innovation. In this exclusive interview, Hughes shares insights on how AI is reshaping the consulting industry and discusses his journey in developing AI-driven business solutions.<\/p>\n
Q: What drove you to launch ProAI in 2023, and what gap did you see in the market?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe first started doing research for generative AI in 2021 because we noticed a significant customer base that couldn\u2019t afford our professional services. We wanted to help these users in a unique way versus the traditional template-driven approach existing in the market.<\/em><\/p>\n While we saw that generative AI models at the time produced relatively poor quality writing and had limited access to research, we wanted to solve that. However, we recognized that our experience is very nuanced and not something that can be easily fully automated. Rather than competing with our agency, we extended the services to a new demographic to create additional opportunities.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Q: How do you see AI transforming the delivery of professional services in the near future?<\/p>\n \u201cGoing forward, I suspect the biggest opportunity for professional services firms will be extending their services by offering more than they were previously able to. Everything was traditionally project-based, but now firms can have full-time representation in their clients\u2019 operations by creating a digital clone of themselves.<\/em><\/p>\n While it\u2019s not a substitute for human oversight, it does expand the possibilities of what can be done. It allows firms to expand into market segments they couldn\u2019t previously reach and create new tools that better serve their clients, particularly around execution and monitoring \u2014 areas where professional services firms typically fell short.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Q: Your recent patents focus on AI-based business strategy. Can you explain your approach to AI innovation?<\/p>\n \u201cOur research predominantly focuses on proprietary data handling, memory storage, and processing information in ways that generate unique insights. When we started, AI agents were very new with elementary reasoning abilities. Because reasoning abilities are still generally more generalized at this stage, it\u2019s difficult to apply industry-specific or vertical-specific reasoning that we typically refer to as \u2018experience.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n We try to replicate specific workflows within specific functions to collect data in a targeted way to solve specific problems, as opposed to applying a general agent framework, which is typically the case with out-of-the-box tools.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Q: Will AI replace consultants or augment them?<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very new situation. I imagine that generalist consultants, especially the bottom 20% of performers, will probably disappear. There will be an increased emphasis on people with specialized knowledge and expertise, moving away from project-based work toward enhancing and providing new services that weren\u2019t previously possible.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s similar to how people previously performed tasks for their line of work and leveraged technology to do things they couldn\u2019t before, while their previous work became highly automated. We\u2019re in a transitionary phase where much current work will likely be automated, and we\u2019re still exploring new opportunities that will continue to emerge in the next decade.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Q: You\u2019ve shared some thoughts on AI scaling. How do you see this evolving?<\/p>\n \u201cAI scaling is a new discipline that many are still exploring. While some methods may be starting to plateau, there are plenty of other opportunities to enhance these technologies that might not have been considered before. It\u2019s similar to being able to assess the next move based on prior actions, whereas in the past, we never really had any prior actions to go by \u2014 we were establishing the fundamental baseline.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Q: How do you balance AI implementation with maintaining quality in professional services?<\/p>\n \u201cWe typically use AI to assist with research collection and processing, ensuring our team can handle more data more reliably. We also use it to cross-check our research. Initially, we used it for narratives and writing, but we found that over time, the performance decreased and it ultimately made our team complacent.<\/em><\/p>\n I think preventing team members from over-relying on AI tools will be crucial for professional services firms. It\u2019s important to have something unique that AI can\u2019t fully automate. If firms are using LLM tools or AI tools and ultimately delivering the same thing as everyone else, everyone essentially becomes a data entry person. There\u2019s value in forcing ourselves to not use these tools because the work results are currently much more innovative and creative without them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Q: Where do you see the industry heading in the next few years?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to predict where the industry is going. When we started in 2021, the tools were extremely basic \u2014 you could essentially only train them to write in a very specific way without any type of reasoning ability. They\u2019ve progressed to having very strong reasoning ability, but they still have fundamental limitations around understanding context within the broader scheme of things.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s like explaining to a blind person how to navigate a maze \u2014 they cannot navigate sufficiently unless they have sight themselves and understand where they are. While many people are working on solving this problem, we\u2019ll have a fairly limiting factor until that\u2019s solved. Even then, there\u2019s still contextual industry-specific understanding that needs to develop over time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe Future of Professional Services<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Innovation in AI Implementation<\/h3>\n
The Future of Consulting Professionals<\/h3>\n
Scaling AI Technologies<\/h3>\n
Balancing Traditional Expertise with AI<\/h3>\n
Looking Ahead<\/h3>\n