tsukumo vs a big consultancy for AI
A big consultancy is strong on strategy and weak on production — it defines a target and hands you specs to implement, often by people who haven't shipped agents themselves. tsukumo works the other way: we run AI agents in your actual repo, in production, and leave your developers able to keep running them without us. Pick the firm for board-level strategy; pick tsukumo to get agents working in production.
0104side by side
| tsukumo | A big consultancy | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the work happens | In your repo, in production, against your standards | In decks and specs; implementation handed to you or offshore |
| Who does it | Developers who ship agent fleets on their own products | Strategists and analysts; the builders are often a separate, junior tier |
| What you're left with | Your team operating agents independently | A strategy document and a dependency on the next engagement |
| Typical cost | Scoped engagement + optional retainer, mid-market sized | $200–500K+ programs |
0204the honest case
When a big consultancy is the right call
If you need an organization-wide transformation across many departments, board-level strategy with a brand name procurement already trusts, or change management for thousands of people, a large firm is built for that and we're not. Our wedge is narrower and deeper: getting a dev team actually running AI in production. (For the noisy "we do all AI" generalist shop rather than a big SI, see tsukumo vs a generic AI agency.)
0304common questions
Straight answers.
- Do big firms not do implementation?
- Some do, but it's usually a separate delivery tier handed the strategy team's specs — not the same people, and rarely people who run agent fleets in production themselves. The strategy-to-production handoff is where most of the value leaks.
- Isn't a big firm safer?
- Safer on procurement and brand, not necessarily on outcome. A polished AI strategy you can't operationalize isn't safe — it's expensive shelfware. We'd rather your team be running agents than holding a deck about it.
- Can you handle a large enterprise?
- Our sweet spot is mid-market scale-ups (~30-dev teams) the big firms tend to overlook. For a true enterprise-wide rollout, a large SI is a better structural fit; we focus on making one dev team genuinely capable.
0404talk to us
or have us build it — same capability, the other door