"Paying for the Renovation": 5 Ways to Innovate CEO Amer Iqbal Tells Financial Times Why AI Hasn't Lowered Professional Services Fees… Yet
Amer Iqbal, CEO of corporate innovation consultancy 5 Ways to Innovate provides his industry insights in an ongoing series of articles in Financial Times on the future of Professional Services
NEW YORK, NY — Amer Iqbal, CEO of corporate innovation consultancy 5 Ways to Innovate, has been featured as an industry expert in Agenda, a specialist publication of the Financial Times. The feature is part of an ongoing, high-profile series by the publication examining the profound structural shifts facing global consulting and audit firms as they navigate the integration of Artificial Intelligence.
As a regular contributor to the series, Iqbal provided critical commentary on why corporate clients have yet to see price reductions or efficiency dividends from their professional services partners, despite multi-billion-dollar enterprise investments in automation.
The Hidden Cost of the AI "Renovation"
The Financial Times piece highlights a growing tension among corporate board directors: while major firms are automating entry-level work and reducing headcount, client fees continue to climb. Addressing this gap, Iqbal noted that integrating complex language models into highly regulated industries still requires intense human oversight and capital investment.
"At this stage AI introduces more audit risk than it removes," Iqbal stated in the article. "Right now, the industry is still paying for the renovation."
According to Iqbal, because these advanced models require extensive human labor to both build and rigorously supervise, clients must wait a bit longer before AI efficiencies translate directly into a lower cost of service.
The Influence of Private Equity on Firm Transformation
Beyond the technology itself, Iqbal advised corporate board directors to look closely at the underlying financial structures driving these AI strategies, specifically pointing to the quiet influx of private equity capital into the professional services sector.
"Private equity capital has quietly threaded itself through the audit ecosystem," Iqbal observed. "That brings both opportunity and pressure. Private equity can help accelerate transformation, but investors will always prioritize returns before passing any cost savings to clients."
The commentary underscores a central theme of 5 Ways to Innovate’s broader advisory work: helping enterprises look past the hype of digital transformation to understand the commercial realities, structural risks, and genuine timelines required to see ROI from Generative AI.
The full feature, which also explores the impending demise of the traditional billable hours model in an AI-augmented economy, is available to subscribers via the Financial Times network.
