In 2023, more than half of the European businesses that looked for IT specialists failed to find them: it is in this structural shortage that the market for Artificial Intelligence consulting has its roots. But what sets an AI Consultant apart from a seller of enthusiasm? The international sources, the ethics of the role and the perimeter of competences that the UNI 11621-8:2026 standard has set, for the first time in Europe.
There is one figure, official and little commented upon, that on its own explains the existence of this profession. According to the statistical office of the European Union, “in 2023, 57.5% of EU enterprises that recruited or tried to recruit ICT specialists had difficulties in filling ICT vacancies” (Eurostat), the most frequent cause being the very absence of applications. When more than one business in two cannot hire the digital skills it seeks, those skills are bought on the services market: this is the economic space of the AI Consultant, the figure who guides organisations in the strategic integration of AI, weighing risks and benefits and overseeing compliance.
A real profession, without a slot in the repertoires
It must be said plainly: in the official US occupational repertoires an “AI Consultant” entry does not exist. The figure is reconstructed from the practice of the large professional-services firms and, for its underlying method, from the related occupations of management analysis, for which the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) of the US Department of Labor lists tasks such as “Analyze data gathered and develop solutions or alternative methods of proceeding” (O*NET).
Industry practice, by contrast, is eloquent. One of the largest international practices describes its AI work thus: “designing, building and scaling cutting-edge AI and agentic AI solutions that accelerate strategic imperatives and enable people to trust the AI models that support them”, warning that “to successfully scale AI, the right strategy, data, architecture, security and governance need to be in place and aligned with business goals” (IBM). Strategy, data, architecture, security, governance: the serious consultant works on all five planes, or is not advising but selling.
The work, seen up close
In practice, the consultant’s value is measured at four moments. At the outset, in the initial assessment: reading the maturity of the client’s data, processes and skills so as to distinguish high-value use cases from wishful ones, because the recent history of AI adoption is full of pilot projects born without a clear question and never brought into production. Then in strategy: building the roadmap, comparing the alternatives – from the proprietary model to the open one – and estimating costs and supply dependencies. Next in compliance: mastering Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the AI Act), Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the GDPR) and voluntary tools such as the management system based on the UNI CEI ISO/IEC 42001 standard, translating obligations into design choices. Finally in support: training, process redesign, success metrics. The value of AI, indeed, is not generated when the technology is purchased, but in the organisation’s ability to use it under control.
European demand, between shortages and emerging roles
That Europe is calling for these skills is confirmed by the official needs analyses. The AI-skills needs analysis of the EU co-funded Artificial Intelligence Skills Alliance (ARISA) records the emergence of steering and support roles: “AI management & support roles are also emerging with the most foreseen need for AI strategists, AI ethics officers and AI quality controller”. And the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), in the first European survey on skills and AI, warns that upskilling people will be the decisive lever of the transition, noting that “upskilling, reskilling and investing in AI literacy will be crucial drivers of a human-centred AI revolution“: precisely the ground on which consulting is judged, because the good consultant leaves the client with capability of its own, not dependence.
Ethics and verifiable competences
The AI Consultant operates in a position of marked information asymmetry towards the client: from this follow duties of independence in recommendations, of transparency about the limits of the technologies proposed and of refusing miraculous promises. In Italy, the UNI 11621-8:2026 standard has given the profile a perimeter of competences following the methodology of the European e-Competence Framework, the UNI EN 16234-1 standard; and anyone wishing to have such competences attested may undergo assessment by an accredited body under the UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17024 standard, within the framework of Accredia Information Circular DC No. 21/2026: an objective criterion, at last, for telling the professional from the improviser.
Conclusions
The AI consulting market is the offspring of a shortage documented by European statistics and set to endure. Precisely for this reason the quality of consulting is a matter of general interest: where the advice is weak, the error is multiplied across all the organisations that bought it.
In the light of the above, one wonders whether the headlong demand for Artificial Intelligence consulting will reward those who demonstrate verified competences and independence of judgement; the market, now, has the tools to require both.
