Why 'AI strategy' decks ship nothing

If you're being sold an 'AI transformation' that ends with a deck and a roadmap, you're being sold theatre. Here's the alternative.

There's a version of AI consulting that's eating budgets alive right now. It looks like this: a six-figure engagement, a multi-month assessment, a beautifully designed strategy deck, a 'roadmap,' a 'governance framework,' and a steering committee. At the end, nothing ships. The team is more confused than when they started, and the budget is gone.

This is not a niche pattern. It's the default mode of how legacy consulting firms have rebranded their old transformation playbook with the word AI on top. Same deck, new vocabulary, same lack of working software at the end.

Three reasons, structural: