HACKER Q&A
📣 ednite

Anyone Dealt with Non-Technical AI Consultants?


I was recently invited by a client to join an interview with a prospective "AI solutions provider". The consultant had no background in data analytics or engineering, with only some experience with 365 Copilot and a long corporate history of creating employee performance metrics reports (not associated with AI).

What surprised me wasn’t the lack of technical depth, but how impressed the decision-makers were with a jargon-filled PowerPoint. He was confidently pitching solutions for everything from automation to predictive modeling.

Has anyone else run into situations like this? Non-technical “AI experts” selling big promises to leadership teams? Did it actually lead to value or just expensive slideware?

  👤 ednite Accepted Answer ✓
Just to clarify, I’m not disparaging the value of business context or domain expertise. But I’m genuinely curious how companies are evaluating AI talent, especially when there’s little to no technical foundation.

Have any of you seen these types of hires deliver results? Or do they end up outsourcing everything and adding a layer of abstraction and confusion that slows things down?

Would love to hear both success stories and cautionary tales.