Rewriting the Playbook for Professional Services: A Look Back at Converge 2025

Last week at our annual industry event, Kantata Converge 2025, we marked a massive turning point for the industry. I opened the conference by sharing a simple, but powerful truth: Until now, the services industry has largely existed without dramatic change — but — the introduction of new technology is now completely re-writing the playbook for what professional services success will look like going forward. And this includes the very business models themselves.

With all the noise around AI Agents and their ability to drive down costs, many now have a fear that Agentic AI will simply lead to a “race to the bottom,” where the cheapest offering wins. There was a realization that AI automation is now table stakes. You can’t automate your way to transformation. The new playing field will be elsewhere – it will ultimately be your firm’s unique expertise that will drive your differentiation and ability to win sustainable business, not automation.

Throughout the past week, my colleagues have shared their perspectives on how Kantata is stepping forward to how organizations can take stock and make a crucial pivot:

• Our CEO, Michael Speranza set the stage, naming the crossroads our industry faces and why the time for bold change has arrived.
• Our Chief Product Officer Sarah Edwards unveiled why Kantata is building a new Expertise Engine for professional services, showing how PSA must evolve into the operating system for the AI-native era.
• Our Chief Technology Officer Vikas Nehru went deeper into the technology, making the case for why we’re building a domain-specific Expertise Engine — not relying on generic AI — to empower every consultant with the wisdom of your best.

Each perspective added a vital piece to the larger story of where Kantata is going and why. Taken together, they reveal not just a vision, but a mandate for the future of professional services. This is about the impending shift to the new AI-native era — with all new business models, new ways of thinking, new ways of competing.

Recap: A Week of Bold Ideas in Action

Converge was where that mandate met momentum. This wasn’t a conference of theory or speculation, it was a week where vision became tangible. In keynotes, panels, and live demonstrations, attendees saw how the new era of professional services is already taking shape.

Here are a few highlights from Converge week:

• Unveiling of the Industry-first Kantata Expertise Engine™: This ground-breaking innovation continuously captures the collective knowledge and intellectual property of a professional services function, and then makes it available to the entire organization. We gave attendees a live look at the Kantata Expertise Engine™, and its first Accelerator, in action. FOIL CTO Simon Turner shared how his firm is using the Expertise Engine’s Sales Accelerator in beta to eliminate sales-delivery disconnects, scope more accurately based upon prior projects, and improve win rates through greater differentiation. And that was just the tip of the iceberg — we also walked through other advances coming soon, from GenBI to new workflow automation capabilities, that will power Kantata customers into the new era of professional services.
• Announcement of a Exclusive SPI Benchmark Data Agreement: We unveiled an exciting new partnership that will enable Kantata to become the exclusive PSA vendor to have access to the industry’s most comprehensive and granular dataset on professional services performance, SPI’s renowned benchmarking dataset — which will be anonymized and surfaced through the Kantata Expertise Engine. It’s a major milestone and industry differentiator, as our AI models will be trained on the most powerful dataset in the industry, purpose-built for professional services. This unlocks a new level of intelligence where Kantata’s domain-specific AI can deliver recommendations grounded in real-world benchmarks — showing firms not just how they’re performing, but how to reach the level of the best in their peer set. That’s a first for our industry, and a foundation for the breakthroughs ahead.
• Celebrating Catalyst Award Winners: We recognized this year’s Kantata Catalyst Award winners, honoring professionals and teams driving measurable excellence and innovation in services delivery. The winners — including Robert McGeachy of Kintyre Consulting, Rutger Coopman of Bestmix, Martin Wombwell of Advania UK, and The Frankel Agency — represent the forward-thinking spirit shaping the industry’s future. Their achievements, from optimizing operations and uniting CRM and PSA data to delivering remarkable ROI through creativity and client-first focus, exemplify what’s possible when technology and talent come together.
• Industry-first AI Maturity Model: We introduced a prescriptive five-level, three-pillar AI Maturity Model designed to help organizations navigate the journey ahead. That framework came alive in a dynamic panel discussion with Kantata customers — leaders from West Monroe Partners, Mariner Innovations, and NexThink — who shared their candid stories about their own AI transformation journeys.
• Brand New IDC Primary Research: We released new research from IDC quantifying the benefits of adopting PSA — and, critically, the business value erosion of inaction. IDC took a novel approach, interviewing firms that evaluated PSA within the past few years but chose not to invest, and comparing them to those that did. The results revealed a widening gap in profitability, predictability, and resilience. In the live session “Making the Case for Change in a World That Won’t Stop Changing,” IDC’s Nathan Budd showed how the cost of standing still compounds into a “self-reinforcing death spiral” that no firm can afford.

Why I’m Excited About What’s Next

Amongst a week full of revelations, the SPI benchmark data agreement particularly excites me because it speaks directly to the unease services leaders have voiced to me again and again. With AI rewriting the rules, new business models emerging, and old metrics losing their relevance, many leaders feel like the ground is shifting beneath them. They worry about a “race to the bottom,” constantly glancing sideways to ask, Am I keeping up? Am I falling behind?

By combining SPI’s unmatched benchmark data with the Kantata Expertise Engine, we will be able to answer those questions with precision, giving leaders the confidence to know not just how they are performing, but how they are performing relative to their peers — and what actions they need to take to improve.

This is not just good. It’s huge. It means we can replace anxiety with clarity, fear with confidence, and uncertainty with a roadmap. It’s why I believe this partnership represents one of the most significant milestones yet in bringing the new era of professional services to life.

The professional services playbook is being rewritten. The old rules no longer apply. What we’ve glimpsed this week is the new blueprint — one built on services expertise that compounds, AI that augments every consultant, and insights that flow not just from your own history, but from the certainty of the collective performance across the entirety of the industry.

At Kantata, we’re doing more than observing this turning point. We’re leading it. And the work we started together at Converge is only the beginning.