AI Isn’t Killing Services, It’s Redefining Them

There’s no getting around it: routine, low-value work is disappearing. Tasks such as setting up code components, tweaking UIs, or writing QA tickets no longer demand hours of manual effort. AI and agentic tools now handle image validation, merchandising automations, and reporting with minimal oversight. It’s not that the volume of this work has gone away, but rather the human effort required to do it has dropped dramatically.

As these rote tasks fade, services teams will become leaner and more focused. Large, junior-heavy teams are being supplanted by skilled specialists paired with intelligent agents and client-side experts to deliver higher-quality outcomes, faster.

That means velocity and precision are the new competitive edge. Rather than throwing bodies at problems, modern service providers are expected to bring smart systems, accelerators, and agent-powered workflows that cut down on cycle times and raise the quality bar. Clients aren’t interested in buying hours anymore, but they will buy speed, certainty, and outcomes.

The firms that thrive in this new reality won’t be the ones that resist change or try to protect the old margins. They’ll be the ones that embrace AI as a co-pilot, invest in upskilling their teams, and reorient their delivery models around value, not volume.

Clients want accelerated development velocity. They ask for end-to-end automation of repetitive tasks so their teams can focus on strategy and innovation, and they look for smarter project management routines, AI-assisted QA, and sales proposals that reduce overhead. So we recalibrated our routines, our offers, and our approach to be able to give them what they need.

By integrating custom accelerators, automated testing frameworks, and agentic workflows directly into project delivery, we help customers reach their goals without the large teams (and larger billed hours) of a bygone era.

By co-delivering with client teams, we’re able to keep everyone aligned and moving forward, harnessing specialized talent and modern project governance that can flex for rapid innovation.

And by building on a heritage of Agile methodologies and composable technology foundations, we continue to refine our approach and offerings to suit the dynamically evolving needs of enterprise organizations.

In short, we’re doing what we’ve always done: taking a customer-centric approach to how we operate. And in the age of AI, that means embracing automation, assistive technology, and agents.

We recognized early that AI adoption requires intentional change. And it’s not just a change in tooling; this is an end-to-end change management lift that cuts deep into habits formed over decades of services work. To tackle this, we’ve built a whole-systems structure for our teams.

Internally, there are three core components:

1. Tool training and testing: We held monthly leadership workshops and trained teams in new tooling. We gave our whole organization access to the best AI assistants with guardrails that allowed for safe experimentation, streamlining our security assessment criteria for faster testing of new tools.

2. Embedding AI and new routines: We built internal agents for everything from daily project routines and QA support to reporting and company engagement, ensuring AI became a part of the fabric of our daily work lives so everyone was familiar and comfortable with the new technology.

3. Org structure and role redefinition: We invested time, energy and care into mapping the roles and functions we need, redefining what key roles will look like in 2-3 years time as these tools and processes become standard, and creating rubrics that offer clarity and a roadmap for long-term success so team members can see and understand the changes and work with managers to upskill along the way.

Services, in the end, is all about people— even as AI-powered agents enter the collaborative workforce. It’s why intentional planning and real change management are essential, ensuring people are at the core of the technology evolution, and not the other way around.

But internal changes are only half of the equation (and in some ways, the easier half).

On the client side, timelines, attitudes, and expectations are much less within your control, but the shift here needs to be as intentional and focused as internal all the same. With a foundation in composable, we had an advantage: our core skillset and offerings were built around the ability to adjust and adapt as markets evolve. But our commercial models needed to evolve to reflect those changes, so we’ve shifted to fixed-scope, outcome-driven engagements instead of buckets of hours with uncertain results. By tying fees directly to outcomes, we’re able to give clients the path to ROI they need when investing in new technologies.

My advice for any company on this path is to plan for company-wide transformation. Invest in training, give teams time to experiment, and align incentives with outcomes rather than hours.

This is a key moment in our industry. The change is happening, it’s happening fast, and it is big. How you approach this moment will determine your long-term success, there’s no way around it. But services firms are built on the ability to navigate big, transformational change, so treat your firm the way you would any client.

Begin by defining your North Star and establish clear success metrics for AI adoption. Put the tools in your team’s hands with as much liberty as you can safely grant them, testing agents and AI tools on real tasks. Explore demos, read case studies, and immerse yourself in what AI can do. Most importantly, talk to your teams and bring them along on the journey. Ask for their input, listen to their concerns, and work with them to co-create your future.

When in doubt, speak to others further ahead of you. Call Orium, talk to peers, go listen to some AI software pitches. Once you see AI in action, you can’t unsee its impact. The key is hands-on experience.

AI is not killing services. It is the catalyst for a new era of high-value, agent-powered offerings. At Orium, we’re leading that transformation. If you’re ready to reshape your services for the AI age, start now and partner with experts who have already walked the path.