Six Ways AI Will Transform Expertise: What It Means For Firms

Forbes

18 hours ago

Jeff Berkowitz leads advisory firm Delve Research & AI platform Delve, helping organizations navigate complex policy & reputational issues.
Business leaders everywhere are wondering how AI will change the way their teams work. For my company, this wasn't an abstract question—it was an opportunity to solve a major pain point.
As a research and intelligence firm serving public affairs teams, our job is to catch the developments that cause reputational damage and regulatory risk. So you can imagine how crazy our day to day has been these past few years. Yet the tools available to handle the deluge of information confronting our clients were stuck in the past, with keyword‑driven systems that buried teams in noise rather than helping them see what mattered.
Until generative AI. After GPT-3.5 arrived, we went deep. We built a new AI platform to solve the problems in our industry that no one else had cracked, and along the way, we learned what it takes to evolve mission‑critical knowledge work in the AI era.
You don't need to build a platform to thrive in this new reality, but you do need to understand how AI is reshaping the knowledge work of many in professional services, what it means for your people and processes and how to adapt so your firm can thrive.
Here are six lessons I've learned to help you navigate the future of work.
Your value can't be measured only by the outputs you deliver.
As AI advances, firms that measure their worth by the quantity of deliverables produced are at risk of being commoditized. But it doesn't have to be this way. No one hires top-tier consultants for their engaging slide decks or a skilled law firm for access to statutes and case law. They hire them for expertise, foresight and confidence in complex situations. AI can handle drafting and processing, but firms must deliver value beyond outputs, helping clients act decisively where stakes are high.
To stay competitive, firms must deliver higher-order strategic value and judgment that AI cannot replicate.
AI isn't just a tool—it's a teammate (and soon, a team of teams).
AI is evolving beyond simple workflow automations and chatbot conversations into something more transformative. This doesn't mean workers will be replaced. Instead, AI is more of an Iron Man suit than a replacement robot, empowering each employee to tackle higher-level work. Smart firms will pair workers with AI teammates, shifting employees from the execution of tasks to the orchestration of systems that leverage human and machine's best contributions.
Firms should consider how new AI capabilities will fit into their organizational structure, not just their workflows.
AI won't replace junior talent, it will help them grow.
The question on every professional services leader's mind: If AI can generate first drafts and basic analysis, do we need junior staff? And if not, how do we build the next generation of talent?
The reality is that junior roles won't disappear, but they will change. Team members will need to add 'wins above replacement,' to borrow from the movie Moneyball. Juniors who copy and paste AI outputs won't last, but those who learn to orchestrate AI effectively will thrive.
Meanwhile, more senior staff will have greater bandwidth to help juniors hone their judgement and instincts. Before AI, many firms relied on informal, on‑the‑job shadowing and hoped hires 'figured it out.' Now, that can get more formal. Having a structured program in place gave our firm a major advantage in training our team and the AI itself to work to our high standards.
View AI as an opportunity to reshape junior roles and future-proof your team.
Start with your workflows, not the tools.
Resist the temptation to test 'cool' new tools in a vacuum or hope legacy platforms bolt on enough AI to keep up. Instead, ask: Where can AI truly make us better?
Pinpoint specific pain points in your workflows. For example, we saw how keyword-driven monitoring platforms buried our team in noise, so we built AI systems that mirror how our analysts identify what matters.
Don't start with the shiny object. Map your workflows, find the bottlenecks, and implement AI where it truly amplifies your strengths.
Codify how you think and work.
Your edge isn't just smart people; it's the systems and approaches they use to deliver consistent value. Now is the time to capture the processes and reasoning that make your team effective and translate them so AI can scale that expertise. Without codifying how your team works, you'll be left competing on speed and price.
AI can't mirror your expertise unless you first understand, document and teach it how you think and work.
Leverage your data and domain expertise.
Alongside your processes, two other assets can make your AI adoption powerful: proprietary data and domain-specific expertise. Most firms hold unique data—like our years of proprietary research outputs—that can be used to inform AI in ways no one else can.
Second, your domain knowledge informs which public (but often hard-to-access) datasets matter to your clients. Consumer tools like ChatGPT, for example, can't systematically access legislative, regulatory or stakeholder data—and certainly won't enrich it to match our standards for precise and comprehensive recall. Our company delivers results that consumer LLMs can't match by combining proprietary research outputs with these domain-specific datasets.
Use your unique data and expertise to inform AI so your offerings remain differentiated and defensible.
Conclusion: The future of expertise isn't speed; it's elevation.
AI doesn't just make work faster; it frees space for critical deep work. Stress-testing assumptions, building relationships and advising on high-stakes decisions are what truly set professional services firms apart. What used to get squeezed by the pace of deliverables can now move center stage.
AI is going to transform knowledge work. The winners of this AI revolution won't be the firms blindly chasing tools or pretending nothing's changing. They'll understand what makes them valuable and use AI to amplify it, not automate around it. That's the opportunity ahead for every professional services leader ready to evolve.
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