AI Consultant Use Statistics 2026

Published November 4, 2026

Our analysts reviewed four surveys conducted or released in 2026, three of which reached 2,175 business and technology decision-makers, along with the typical clients listed in all 96 of our AI services firm reviews, to show how many companies hire outside help with AI as of Q4 2026 and which companies the firms doing that work serve.

Most companies that adopt AI ask for outside help at some point, whether for a strategy, a first pilot, or a production system. That help comes from management consultants, IT service providers, and specialist AI firms, and surveys rarely ask about it the same way. Some ask whether a company works with consultants today, some ask about plans for the next year, and one asks consulting clients what they have already paid for. We wanted to know how common outside AI help has become and what kinds of companies the specialist firms work for. The answers depend on who was asked.

Our analysts collected outside-help figures from RSM’s Middle Market AI Survey 2026, GTIA’s 2026 study of small and midsize businesses, a February 2026 survey of cloud decision-makers by Southworks and theCUBE Research, and Source Global Research’s survey of consulting clients. We recorded each survey’s sample, date, and question. We then read the typical clients entry of all 96 AI services firm reviews published as of November 3, 2026, and tagged each firm by the client sizes and industries it lists.

In the following sections, we compare how many organizations use outside AI help by survey, what middle market companies are doing to get AI help, the client sizes AI services firms serve in the US and elsewhere, and the industries they list most often.

Half or More of Companies Use Outside Help With AI

Each survey asked a different group of buyers about consultants, service providers, or partners, so we start by lining up what each one measured and how many said yes.

Source: AI Services Companies analysis of RSM (2026), GTIA (August 2026), Southworks (February 2026), and Source Global Research (March 2026), conducted November 2026. Data: organizations-using-outside-ai-help-by-survey.csv

Source: AI Services Companies analysis of RSM (2026), GTIA (August 2026), Southworks (February 2026), and Source Global Research (March 2026), conducted November 2026.

Key Findings

• Consulting clients have moved from interest to spending. The share of Source Global Research’s clients who paid consultants for AI-related support rose from 81% to 88% in about a year, and help with using AI effectively went from 11th to first among the consulting services in Source’s survey. 97% of those clients said they were satisfied with the work, and 43% were highly satisfied.
• For agentic AI, outside providers come first in most plans. 68.6% of the cloud decision-makers in the Southworks survey plan to use IT or consulting service providers, and 70.9% plan to use agentic AI platform vendors, while 31.5% plan to build the capabilities mainly in-house.
• Smaller companies look for outside help about as often as mid-sized ones. Half of the SMBs in GTIA’s study already work with a strategic partner or IT service provider on AI, and another 12% are considering it, so about six in ten use or are weighing outside help. The areas where they said they need the most support were training employees to use AI and identifying the right AI tools, each cited by 38%, followed by integrating AI into existing systems at 31%.

Middle Market Companies Hire Consultants While Building In-House AI Skills

RSM asked middle market leaders in the US and Canada which of four steps their company is taking to reach its AI goals over the next year, which shows how outside consultants fit next to in-house hiring and buying software.

Source: RSM, Middle Market AI Survey 2026: U.S. and Canada, survey of 1,030 respondents, March 2026. Data: ai-sourcing-plans-of-middle-market-companies.csv

Source: RSM, Middle Market AI Survey 2026: U.S. and Canada, survey of 1,030 respondents, March 2026.

Key Findings

• Middle market companies are building their own AI skills at the same pace as they hire outside help. 54% are adding AI capabilities in-house and 52% are engaging consultants, and 88% agreed that their organization has the right in-house AI experts to implement AI.
• Engaging consultants has the largest share of companies with no plans, at 9%, against 5% to 7% for the other three steps. Among the companies expecting to spend more on AI next year, 40% said external consulting and advisory services are likely to be cut as a result of their AI investments, after business intelligence or analytics initiatives (43%) and cybersecurity (41%).
• Working with outside partners has a better record in at least one study. MIT NANDA found that partnerships with outside vendors on customized AI tools reached deployment about 67% of the time, against about 33% for tools built in-house, based on self-reported outcomes from its interviews and surveys. Our AI build vs buy research compares more studies of that choice.

US-Based AI Services Firms Focus More on Enterprise Clients

The firms companies hire are the other side of this market. Each of our firm reviews lists the firm’s typical clients, so we sorted all 96 firms by the client sizes and types they list and compared firms based in the US with the rest.

Source: AI Services Companies analysis of the typical clients listed in 96 AI services firm reviews, conducted November 2026. Data: client-sizes-listed-by-ai-services-firms.csv

Source: AI Services Companies analysis of the typical clients listed in 96 AI services firm reviews, conducted November 2026.

Key Findings

• Enterprise clients are the most common. 55 of the 96 firms (57.3%) list enterprise or large companies, 40 (41.7%) list mid-market or midsize companies, and 24 list both, such as BairesDev and Keyhole Software.
• The other 34 firms, all but one based outside the US, are more than twice as likely to list startups or small businesses, at 29.4% against 11.3% of US firms. Examples include Leanware in Colombia, NaNLABS in Argentina, and YuSMP Group in Armenia.
• 14 firms list no client size, only industries, regions, or a platform, such as 10Clouds, which works with banks, insurers, and fintechs. A smaller company will find more firms that list companies its size among those based outside the US, and our AI consulting pricing models research shows how those firms price their work.

Financial Services and Healthcare Lead the Industries AI Services Firms Serve

Firms also list the industries their clients work in, which tells a buyer how many firms already know its field, so we counted each industry mentioned across the 96 reviews.

Source: AI Services Companies analysis of the typical clients listed in 96 AI services firm reviews, conducted November 2026. Data: client-industries-listed-by-ai-services-firms.csv

Source: AI Services Companies analysis of the typical clients listed in 96 AI services firm reviews, conducted November 2026.

Key Findings

• 45 of the 96 firms (46.9%) list financial services clients such as banks, insurers, fintechs, or investment firms, more than any other industry. Some focus on finance clients alone, such as Neurons Lab and Accordion, which works with private equity sponsors and the finance teams of their portfolio companies.
• Healthcare and life sciences come second, with 35 firms (36.5%), and the gap between US and other firms is widest there: 28 of the 62 US firms (45.2%) list healthcare clients, against 7 of the other 34 (20.6%). Appsilon, for example, works mostly with pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
• 33 firms (34.4%) list no industry at all, only client sizes, such as Provectus and Distyl AI. For a company in a regulated field such as banking or healthcare, the industries listed in each review are a quick first filter, and our directory lists every firm we review.

What AI Consultant Use Statistics Mean for Companies Hiring Outside Help

Hiring outside help has become a normal part of adopting AI. In each of the four surveys, half or more of the companies asked already work with consultants, service providers, or partners, or plan to, and middle market companies are doing it while they build their own AI teams.

The firms that do this work are not spread evenly. US-based firms list enterprise clients more often, firms based elsewhere list startups and small businesses more often, and financial services and healthcare are the industries the most firms already serve. Our State of AI Services Q4 2026 report covers where these firms are based and how they score.

So if you are planning an AI project with outside help, start with firms that list both your company size and your industry among their typical clients.