Can AI do Strategy? The question every executive team should be asking

"Strategy is too complex for AI."

It’s what most executive teams tend to tell themselves. After all, strategy is a craft—a mix of frameworks, intuition, social influence, and deep business knowledge that separates the best from the rest.

But let’s be honest...

Strategy is nuanced. It’s complex. It’s riddled with contradictions.

There are more frameworks than anyone can count—Porter’s Five Forces, Blue Ocean Strategy, Balanced Scorecard, McKinsey’s Three Horizons, OKRs, North Star Metrics… the list goes on.

Ask two different strategists for a definition of strategy, and you’ll get two different answers—sometimes from the same firm. HBR has published multiple strategy definitions—some of them directly contradict each other. That’s not by accident.

Cut Through the Noise: Strategy, at its Core, Boils Down to Three Simple Elements

No matter how you slice it, it comes back to our ABCs.: A → B → C

✅ A (Current State): Where are we now?

✅ B (Future State): Where do we want to go?

✅ C (Roadmap): How do we get there?

At its core, this is strategy. Every framework, every model, every whitepaper eventually feeds into these three simple pillars - the key word here being 'simple'

We can dress it up with 2x2s, pyramids, and five-step models, but at the end of the day, this is what strategy is.

That’s not to say strategy is simple—it’s the journey you undertake with your internal and external clients to answer a series of consequential questions. To that effect, how you facilitate the rich dialog around these questions is what separates great executive teams from the rest.

If you are in fact a practitioner of this craft, then you will quickly realize that within each letter, you can cascade into sub-questions, each adding nuance:

🔹 For A (Current State): How are we performing? Where are the gaps? How do we compare to competitors?

🔹 For B (Future State): What does success look like? What markets do we want to play in? What capabilities do we need?

🔹 For C (Roadmap): What’s the sequence of initiatives? What resources are required? What are the trade-offs?

Strategy firms often thrive in this complexity. They build their value around institutional knowledge, frameworks, and experience, making strategy feel like an exclusive domain.

But what if AI breaks the wheel?

But what if AI could accelerate this process—without stripping away the depth?

This is exactly where AI can help. Not by replacing strategists, but by enhancing their speed to which they help internal and external clients answer these fundamental questions. The reality is, AI isn’t here to replace strategy teams—it’s here to make them faster and sharper.

If you break strategy into A → B → C, AI accelerates each phase in ways that save time, effort, and real dollars without diminishing impact.

Month 1: Current State (A) – AI-Powered Analysis & Benchmarking

Consultants spend weeks interviewing stakeholders, theming challenges, and synthesizing findings. AI can:

🔹 Auto-theme & synthesize qualitative insights in minutes—not weeks.

🔹 Compare client maturity levels (process, tech, data) against gold standards or competitors.

🔹 Identify blind spots by detecting patterns in stakeholder responses.

💡 Estimated time savings: 20-30% of the discovery phase.

Month 2: Future State (B) – Defining a Dynamic North Star

Executives often struggle to articulate their vision. AI can:

✅ Synthesize leadership input into a single, cohesive direction.

✅ Auto-generate strategic narratives—reducing endless “Pls Fix” email loops.

✅ Create AI-generated images that bring strategy to life visually (A picture is worth a thousand words—clarity is king).

💡 Estimated time savings: 30-40% in alignment and review cycles.

Month 3: Roadmap (C) – Prioritization & Synchronization

🔹 The toughest part of strategy isn’t making the plan—it’s keeping it relevant. AI can:

✅ Auto-prioritize initiatives based on strategic impact and feasibility.

✅ Dynamically adjust dependencies—when one initiative shifts, AI recalibrates the entire roadmap.

✅ Predict risks & suggest optimizations before execution goes off track.

💡 Estimated time savings: 25-35% in roadmap reconciliation and strategic planning.

The ROI: How Much Time (and Money) Can AI Save a project team?

Let’s do the simple math ( again, the key word here being 'simple')

A typical 4-month strategy project has a core team configuration like the below:

Role	Avg. Hourly Rate	Hours/Month	Total Cost (4 Months)
Partner	$900	20	$72,000
Senior Manager	$600	80	$192,000
Manager	$400	120	$192,000
Consultant	$250	160	$160,000
Analyst	$150	180	$108,000
Total Cost			$724,000

Potential AI-Powered Savings by Phase:

Phase	Hours Saved	Cost Savings
Current State (A)	25% reduction	~$60,000
Future State (B)	35% reduction	~$90,000
Roadmap (C)	30% reduction	~$80,000
Total Savings	~$230,000	~30% of project costs

By leveraging AI-powered strategy building, a consulting firm could reduce a $724K project down to $500K-$550K—without sacrificing quality, client engagement, or strategic impact.

Now, imagine if instead of just saving costs, you used AI to take on more work? That’s where the real upside is.

Straago: The Strategy Consultant’s AI Edge

Straago isn’t here to replace consultants.

It’s here to help them show up differently in the room.

With Strategy Canvas, Prioritization Matrices, and Execution Dashboards, Straago lets you:

✅ Deliver faster, sharper insights—win credibility instantly.

✅ Reduce “Pls Fix” feedback loops—no more wasted hours on deck refinements.

✅ Turn every client conversation into a strategic one—stay relevant long after the deck is delivered.

✅ Expand your book of business—spend less time reworking slides, more time winning engagements.

This isn’t about outsourcing strategy to AI.

It’s about augmenting strategy consultants with tools that keep them at the forefront of client impact.

The firms that embrace AI will dominate the next decade of consulting. The ones that don’t? They’ll still be stuck in PowerPoint, wondering why their utilization rates are slipping.