How to Choose an AI Strategy Advisor for an Enterprise or a University

In a 2025 Chronicle of Higher Education survey that BCG cites in a March 2026 article, 67% of education leaders said they had not acted on AI or had no clear AI strategy. That finding explains why presidents, provosts, and Fortune 100 executives keep asking me the same question: how do we choose an advisor who moves us from a pilot to a working program? I spent nearly two decades at Cisco, where I helped shape a $1.1B innovation portfolio and established innovation centers in 14 countries on 5 continents. I have delivered 310+ keynotes on 6 continents since, and I advise on AI at the California State University. This guide gives the five checks I would run on any AI strategy advisor before signing a contract, mine included.

Define the outcome the advisor answers for

Write one sentence that names the result you will hold the advisor to. A Fortune 100 business unit might write: three agentic AI workflows in production by the end of the third quarter, each with a named owner. A university might write: a governance framework approved by faculty senate and a funded pilot in teaching, research, and administration. Each sentence gives the advisor something to be measured against. An advisor who cannot work from a one-sentence outcome will propose a discovery phase with no end date.

Audit where the hours go in the proposal

BCG describes a 10-20-70 principle for AI transformation. About 10% of the success comes from algorithms and models, 20% from technology infrastructure, and 70% from organizational design, talent, and change management. Use that split as an audit of every proposal. If most of the hours go to model selection and tooling, the proposal covers the smaller share of the work. Ask how many hours go to role redesign, manager training, and the decision rights that turn a pilot into an operating process.

Ask for results measured in days and dollars

BCG profiles Illinois Tech, which cut transcript evaluation from 36 days to under one day. That is the shape of result a buyer should expect an advisor to describe: a named process, a before number, an after number, and the owner who kept it running. Ask each candidate for two examples from your sector. At Cisco I asked the same of every innovation program, because a program that cannot show a before and after number is a program people stop funding.

EDUCAUSE ranked "Determining where AI adds real value" as the No. 1 issue in its 2027 Top 10 IT Issues, and its own discussion guide cautions that the ranking reflects urgency more than consensus.

A program that cannot show a before and after number is a program people stop funding.

Urgency without consensus is where an advisor earns the fee. Someone has to bring a president, a provost, and a faculty senate to agreement on where AI adds value before money moves, and an enterprise has the same work to do across its business units.

Match the advisor to how your organization decides

Enterprises decide through executive committees, budget cycles, and risk reviews. Universities decide through shared governance, trustees, and accreditation timelines. An advisor who has worked in only one of those settings carries its pace into the other. Ask how the engagement changes when a decision runs through faculty governance instead of a steering committee.

At the California State University, 22 universities serve 470,000+ students, and a survey of 94,000+ respondents found that 95% have used generative AI. Campus leaders in that position are guiding use that already exists, and an advisor for a university needs a plan for that reality on the first day.

Require a handoff plan in the proposal

Strong advisory work ends with your people running the program. Ask the proposal to state who owns each workflow at day 90, what training the managers receive, and what the advisor stops doing by then. A keynote or workshop paired with ongoing coaching works when every step has a named internal owner.

Run every candidate through the same five checks: one outcome sentence, a proposal weighted toward people and process, before and after numbers from your sector, fluency with your governance, and a handoff plan. The advisors who pass answer each one in writing, and the answers become the contract.

Alex Goryachev is a WSJ-bestselling author and AI keynote speaker who helps enterprise and higher education leaders turn AI strategy into programs their own people run.

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