Elisheva Kissin

They're investing huge sums of cash, billions globally, into building their own AI models, training their people on AI.

They also, because they're significant firms, they have the pull to forge alliances directly with OpenAI and Anthropic, which is hugely attractive for clients.

Another thing that they're doing is they're changing their pricing model.

So they're moving towards subscription or success-based pricing, which is a difficult transition, but will change the way that they handle things.

We don't yet know how much market share the small firms will manage to grab.

That's the key question.

There's still limited hard evidence that AI has already transformed the sector at scale.

Clients are really loyal to established brands.

But the smaller challenges are led by real sector veterans, and they have repeatedly vowed that they can take market share.

So if AI does continue to reduce the importance of shared headcount, size, and scale, then the barrier protecting the incumbents will probably weaken over time.