Nexus
Nexus
vs
Deloitte
Deloitte

Nexus vs Deloitte: Platform vs Advisory-Led AI Delivery

Deloitte brings regulated-industry credibility and board-level trust. Nexus deploys production AI agents in weeks with FDEs at a fraction of consulting cost. Full comparison.

Last updated: February 2026


Quick honest summary

Deloitte is one of the most respected professional services firms in the world. With $70.5B in global revenue, the Deloitte AI Institute, deep relationships in regulated industries (banking, healthcare, government), and partnerships with NVIDIA, Oracle, SAP, and Anthropic, they bring serious credibility to any AI conversation. When your board asks "who is doing this work?" and the answer is Deloitte, nobody questions it. That trust is real and earned over decades.

Nexus is an enterprise AI agent platform paired with white-glove service: Forward Deployed Engineers embedded with your team, change management support, and ongoing optimization. It is not just software. It is a platform and a service designed to get autonomous AI agents into production, completing real business workflows, with business teams owning the outcome.

The difference comes down to model, and specifically, to incentives. Deloitte's model is consulting: you engage a team of consultants at $250-500+/hour, they scope a project over weeks, build a custom solution over months, and deliver it. If requirements change or the solution needs iteration, you re-engage. The IP typically stays with Deloitte's frameworks, and internal teams often need Deloitte to come back for modifications. This model works, but it has a structural tension: the firm earns more when projects take longer, require more consultants, and involve more phases. The client pays for effort and time, not for outcomes. That is not a criticism of the people (Deloitte has genuinely talented consultants), but of the incentive structure itself. There is also a subtler dynamic worth noting. Deloitte has more genuine technology delivery capability than pure strategy firms like McKinsey or BCG; its technology practice employs real engineers and builds real systems. But the firm's power structure is still advisory-led. Partners who sell and govern engagements come from consulting backgrounds, and consultants who claim to "implement" AI often coordinate between client stakeholders and development teams rather than building the systems themselves. The delivery capability is real, but it is mediated through an advisory layer that adds cost, time, and translation loss.

Nexus's model is structurally different, starting with how the incentives work. Forward Deployed Engineers work alongside your team from day one, but the goal is not to build something for you and leave. The goal is to get your business teams owning and operating AI agents on a platform they control. FDEs are builders, not advisors who project-manage other developers. They implement directly, on a full-stack platform that Nexus develops and maintains itself, with no dependency on your IT department or a third-party systems integrator. Agents go live in 2-6 weeks. Per-agent pricing means costs do not scale linearly with headcount. FDEs are included in the platform; you do not pay for the service separately. Nexus is incentivized to deliver results quickly, because the faster you see value, the faster you expand. And when your business needs change, your team iterates directly, without filing a change request or waiting for consultant availability.

The right choice depends on what you actually need. If you need a strategic AI roadmap presented to your board, regulatory gap analysis, or a multi-year transformation program where Deloitte's brand carries weight in the room, Deloitte is a strong choice. If you need AI agents completing business workflows in production within weeks, with your team owning the outcome and without creating an ongoing consulting dependency, that is where Nexus fits.


Side-by-side comparison

Dimension Deloitte AI Nexus
What it is
  • Global professional services firm ($70.5B revenue)
  • Dedicated AI & Data practice and AI Institute
  • Zora AI platform
  • Consulting-led delivery
  • Partnerships with NVIDIA, SAP, Oracle, Anthropic
  • Enterprise AI agent platform + embedded service
  • Forward Deployed Engineers, change management, ongoing optimization
  • Platform-led delivery with engineering support
Delivery model
  • Consulting teams scoped per engagement
  • Senior partner oversight, manager-led delivery
  • Analyst/associate execution
  • Advisory-led power structure; consultants often coordinate between client and developers rather than building directly
  • Project-based or retainer billing
  • Incentive structure rewards longer, larger engagements
  • Forward Deployed Engineers embedded with your team
  • FDEs are builders who implement directly on Nexus's own full-stack platform
  • FDEs included in platform pricing (no separate service fee)
  • No IT dependency or third-party systems integrator required
  • Platform handles infrastructure, integrations, compliance
  • Business teams own and iterate on agents directly
  • Incentive structure rewards fast delivery and expansion
Who builds and owns it
  • Deloitte consultants design and build
  • Internal teams trained on handover (quality varies)
  • Modifications often require re-engagement
  • Business teams build and deploy agents with FDE support
  • They own the outcome
  • No permanent consulting dependency
Time to production
  • 3-12+ months typical for custom AI solutions
  • Includes discovery, scoping, design, build, testing
  • Plus change management and handover phases
  • Each phase adds billable scope; longer timelines mean more revenue for the firm
  • 2-6 weeks for most enterprise agents
  • FDEs handle configuration, integration, testing
  • Deployment alongside your team
  • 3-month POC: build and measure, rather than plan for 12 months
Cost model
  • Day rates: $2,000-3,500+/day per consultant
  • Project-based fees also available
  • Teams of 3-10+ consultants common
  • Enterprise AI projects: $250K-$1M+ initial build
  • Plus ongoing support retainers
  • You pay for time and effort; the firm profits when it takes longer
  • Per-agent pricing tied to value delivered
  • FDEs included (no separate consulting fee)
  • 3-month POC with measurable outcomes first
  • Annual commitment after POC
  • Costs do not scale linearly with users or headcount
  • You pay for outcomes; Nexus profits when you expand
Handles evolving requirements?
  • Change requests require consultant availability
  • Re-scoping and additional billing needed
  • Timelines extend
  • Original solution may need significant rework
  • Business teams modify agents directly on platform
  • FDEs support complex changes
  • No re-scoping or additional engagement required
Regulatory credibility
  • Exceptional, decades of regulated-industry experience
  • Board-level trust
  • Deloitte AI Institute produces respected research
  • Anthropic partnership for regulated deployments
  • SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, GDPR compliant
  • Full audit trails and decision traceability
  • Role-based access
  • Proven in telecom (Orange) and financial services
AI platform
  • Zora AI (announced March 2025)
  • Pre-built agentic AI agents for finance, procurement, and sales & marketing; supply chain, human capital, and customer service on roadmap
  • Built on NVIDIA AI
  • Still in early rollout
  • Plans for thousands of internal users by end of 2025
  • Production-proven platform, 4,000+ native integrations
  • Agent-first architecture
  • Deploys across Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, email, phone, web
  • In production with enterprise customers today
Internal ownership after engagement
  • Varies significantly
  • Best case: trained internal team can operate solution
  • Common case: ongoing dependency for modifications
  • Updates and scaling often need consultants
  • Dependency creates recurring revenue for the firm
  • Business teams own agents from day one
  • No consulting dependency for iteration or scaling
  • FDEs transfer capability, not create dependency
  • Ownership is structurally yours
Support model
  • Account team with periodic check-ins
  • Additional support requires new engagement or retainer
  • Response times depend on engagement terms
  • Forward Deployed Engineers embedded with your team
  • Change management guidance
  • Ongoing optimization
  • Continuous partnership, not periodic engagement
Best for
  • Board-level AI strategy
  • Regulatory transformation programs
  • Large-scale system integration projects
  • Situations where Deloitte brand builds consensus
  • Production agents completing workflows in weeks
  • Engineering-grade support included
  • No permanent consulting dependency
  • Business teams own the outcome

When Deloitte is the better choice

Deloitte has earned its position, and there are scenarios where engaging them is the right call:

  • You need board-level credibility for AI strategy. When the decision requires buy-in from a board of directors, audit committee, or C-suite that trusts Big 4 firms implicitly, Deloitte's brand carries weight that a platform vendor cannot replicate. A Deloitte-authored AI strategy or roadmap can unlock budget and political support that would otherwise stall.

  • The engagement is primarily strategic, not operational. If what you need is a multi-year AI transformation roadmap, an organizational readiness assessment, or a target operating model for AI governance, Deloitte's strategy consultants and the Deloitte AI Institute bring deep expertise. This is different from deploying production agents.

  • You are in a heavily regulated industry where Deloitte has specific compliance frameworks. Deloitte's decades-long relationships with regulators in banking, healthcare, and government mean they understand the nuances of compliance in ways that are hard to replicate. Their partnership with Anthropic specifically targets AI solutions for regulated industries. If your primary constraint is regulatory approval and you need a firm that has navigated that path before, Deloitte's track record matters.

  • The project requires large-scale system integration across legacy enterprise infrastructure. If the engagement is fundamentally about connecting SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and custom legacy systems as part of a broader digital transformation (where AI is one component of a larger technology overhaul), Deloitte's system integration capability and technology partnerships give them a natural advantage.

  • You need a single vendor for strategy, implementation, and audit. Deloitte's breadth across consulting, technology, risk advisory, and audit means they can provide end-to-end coverage for complex programs where multiple workstreams need coordination under one firm.

Even in these scenarios, it is worth being aware of the structural incentive dynamic: consulting firms earn more when engagements are larger and longer. That does not mean the work is not valuable. It means you should define clear deliverables, timelines, and success criteria upfront, and resist scope expansion that adds billable phases without proportional business value.


When Nexus is the better choice

Enterprises that partner with Nexus tend to share a specific pattern: they have already engaged consultants or tried building internally, realized that the consulting model creates dependency and the timeline does not match business urgency, and chose a platform + service approach instead. Many of them noticed the same structural issue: the firms they hired were incentivized to extend, not to finish. Some also noticed a subtler problem: the consultants managing their AI projects were skilled advisors, but they were not the ones actually building the systems. The real engineering happened elsewhere, mediated through layers of project management and requirements translation. With Nexus, the people who understand your business problem are the same people who build the solution.

  • You need AI agents in production in weeks, not quarters. Deloitte's typical AI engagement follows a consulting cadence: discovery (2-4 weeks), design (4-8 weeks), build (8-16 weeks), testing and deployment (4-8 weeks), change management and handover (4-8 weeks). A single agent can take 6-12 months from kickoff to production. Each of those phases is billable, and there is no structural incentive to compress them. With Nexus, most enterprise agents go live within 2-6 weeks. A Forward Deployed Engineer works alongside your team from day one. Orange deployed customer onboarding agents across multiple European markets in 4 weeks. A particularly telling example: an outsourcing firm was at one of our clients in "project management mode." After a full year, they had only finalized planning for a first knowledge assistant and had just begun to consolidate the knowledge base. Nexus came in, scraped the data, implemented the agent, and pushed it to production in 4 weeks. That is an extreme case, but it illustrates what happens when the structural incentive is to plan rather than to ship.

  • You do not want to create a consulting dependency for every change. With the consulting model, modifications require re-engaging the team: scheduling availability, re-scoping, approving additional budget, waiting for delivery. Business moves faster than consulting cycles allow. With Nexus, the business teams who understand the workflows own and iterate on the agents directly. When Lambda's Head of Sales Intelligence needed to adjust data sources or account segmentation, he did it himself. No engagement letter. No change request. No backlog.

  • Your priority is business outcomes, not deliverables. Consulting engagements produce deliverables: strategy documents, architecture diagrams, implementation plans, handover documentation. These are necessary but not sufficient. The outcome that matters is agents completing real work in production. Nexus POCs are tied to specific, measurable business outcomes defined upfront. This is why our POC-to-contract conversion rate is 100%: we do not move forward unless the value is clear.

  • Day-rate economics do not work for your use case. A Deloitte team of 5 consultants at $2,500/day average costs roughly $12,500/day, or $62,500/week. A 6-month engagement runs $1.5M+ before you have anything in production. And if you need ongoing support, you re-engage. Notice the structural dynamic: the firm earns more when the project takes six months instead of three, and when "ongoing support" requires a new retainer instead of a self-service platform. Nexus per-agent pricing ties cost to value delivered, not to consultant hours consumed. FDEs are included. The pricing model is fundamentally different: it scales with agents deployed, not with people billed. Nexus earns more when you deploy more agents, which only happens when the first ones deliver value quickly.

  • Business teams need to own the AI, not just receive it. This is the central insight in the build vs buy decision for AI agents. The most common pattern we see with consulting-built AI solutions: the consultants leave, requirements change, and the internal team cannot modify what was built. They call the consultants back. This cycle repeats, and from the consulting firm's perspective, that recurring dependency is not a bug; it is the business model. With Nexus, the incentive runs the other way. Business teams build and deploy agents on a platform they control. Forward Deployed Engineers ensure they are set up for success, but ownership transfers to your team by design. Nexus succeeds when your team becomes self-sufficient, not when they remain dependent.

  • You have already done the strategy work and need execution. Many enterprises that come to Nexus have already engaged Deloitte, McKinsey, or BCG for AI strategy. They have the roadmap. They have the prioritized use cases. What they need now is production agents, fast. Nexus is built for execution: take the use case, deploy the agent, measure the outcome, scale.


What enterprises experienced

Orange: $4M+ yearly revenue impact, deployed in 4 weeks

Orange Group is a multi-billion euro telecom operator with 120,000+ employees across Europe and Africa. They have significant internal engineering resources and the budget to engage any consulting firm or build anything internally.

They chose Nexus. Rather than waiting through the typical 6-18 month consulting cycle, Orange's business team (not engineering, not consultants) built customer onboarding agents using the Nexus platform. Deployed across multiple European markets in 4 weeks. The agents collect customer information, validate data against systems, check compatibility, and route unusual cases with full context.

The results:

  • 50% conversion rate improvement
  • $4M+ incremental yearly revenue
  • 4-week deployment (not 6-12 months)
  • 100% adoption by sales teams
  • Business team owns and iterates on the agents

To put the timeline in perspective: in a typical consulting engagement, week 4 is often when the discovery phase is wrapping up and the design phase is beginning. That is not because consulting firms lack talent; it is because discovery, scoping, and design are all billable phases, and there is no structural incentive to skip or compress them. Orange had production agents driving revenue.

Lambda: a $4B+ AI company chose to buy instead of build

Lambda is a $4B+ AI infrastructure company with $500M+ ARR. They employ world-class AI engineers who build supercomputers for a living. They had every option available: build internally, hire a consultancy, engage a systems integrator.

They chose Nexus.

Joaquin Paz, Lambda's Head of Sales Intelligence (not an engineer), built an autonomous research agent that monitors 12,000+ enterprise accounts, identifies buying signals, and synthesizes competitive intelligence. He built it in days.

The results:

  • $4B+ in cumulative pipeline identified
  • 24,000+ research hours added annually (equivalent to 12 full-time analysts)
  • 12,000+ enterprise accounts analyzed with deep intelligence
  • Deployed in days, not the months a consulting engagement would require

Lambda has since expanded to an agent fleet across sales and marketing. Anticipated value: more than $7M by 2026.

"I'm not an engineer. I built this in days. With the automation tools we looked at before, I would have needed to spec everything out and wait months for development."

Joaquin Paz, Head of Sales Intelligence, Lambda

European telecom operator: Copilot Studio failed, Nexus succeeded

A multi-billion euro telecom operator with 13,000+ employees tried Microsoft Copilot Studio internally. In 6 months, they were unable to build even one of the use cases they had identified. In the same timeframe with Nexus, they built and deployed a dozen agents across support, compliance, registration, and data harmonization.

The results:

  • 40% of support capacity freed
  • 100% compliance audit trail
  • Handles millions of customer interactions
  • 12-week deployment for the full agent suite

This is the pattern. Not that Copilot Studio or a consulting engagement cannot eventually deliver. It is that the timeline and the dependency model do not match the urgency of the business need. Organizations facing this choice between workflow automation tools and consulting-built solutions often find that neither delivers the speed they need. And when the delivery model is incentivized to extend rather than compress, "eventually" can stretch far longer than it should.


Key differences explained

Consulting model vs. platform model: the structural difference

This is the core distinction, and it matters more than any feature comparison.

Deloitte's model is built around people. Smart, experienced people who understand your industry, analyze your problem, design a solution, and build it for you. The value comes from their expertise and their labor. This model has worked for decades across every type of business problem.

But it has structural constraints, and the most important one is incentive alignment. The cost scales linearly with headcount and duration. Every additional use case requires additional consulting hours. When the engagement ends, the expertise walks out the door. When requirements change, you re-engage. The incentive structure rewards longer, larger engagements, not faster, leaner ones. This is not about bad actors; it is about a business model where revenue is maximized by extending timelines, adding phases, and maintaining client dependency. Consulting firms are also exceptionally skilled at making problems feel more complex than they actually are: governance frameworks, multi-phase rollouts, extensive discovery, capability assessments. Some of that is genuinely necessary. Some of it inflates billable scope.

There is a related dynamic that is less about incentives and more about identity. Even at firms like Deloitte that have genuine technology practices, the dominant culture is advisory. The partners who sell engagements, the managers who run them, and the senior consultants who shape solutions are trained as advisors, not as engineers. When they "implement" AI, they typically orchestrate: defining requirements, managing timelines, coordinating between your business stakeholders and a development team (internal or subcontracted). This is valuable coordination work, but it is not building. It adds a translation layer between what the business needs and what actually gets built, and that layer introduces delay, cost, and fidelity loss. To be fair, Deloitte is closer to the build than McKinsey or BCG; its technology practice employs people who write code. But the advisory layer on top means the people closest to your business problem are rarely the same people writing the solution.

Nexus's model is built around a platform and embedded engineers. The platform handles infrastructure, integrations, compliance, deployment, and lifecycle management. Forward Deployed Engineers bring the expertise to identify the right use cases, design agents that fit your reality, and ensure your team can own and operate what gets built. The value comes from the combination: platform capability plus embedded expertise.

This model has different economics, and critically, different incentives. The first agent takes 2-6 weeks. The second agent is faster because the foundation is already in place. The tenth agent deploys in days. Each new agent does not require a new consulting engagement. Your team iterates without external dependency. The cost scales with agents deployed, not with consulting hours billed. Nexus earns more only when you deploy more agents, which only happens when the existing ones deliver measurable value. The incentive is to deliver results quickly and expand, not to stretch engagements. Nexus starts with a 3-month POC because building and measuring is faster than planning for 12 months.

Forward Deployed Engineers vs. consulting teams: different roles, different outcomes

Deloitte consulting teams are structured around project delivery. A partner owns the relationship, a manager runs the engagement, analysts and associates do the work. The team is assembled for the engagement and moves to the next client when the work is done. Knowledge transfer varies; some engagements leave internal teams well-equipped, others leave them dependent.

Nexus Forward Deployed Engineers serve a fundamentally different function. They are not advisors who coordinate between your team and a development group somewhere else. They are builders who implement directly, on a full-stack platform that Nexus develops and owns. There is no intermediary layer, no translation from "business requirements" to "technical specifications" passed to a separate engineering team. The person sitting with your business team is the same person configuring the agent, wiring the integrations, and pushing it to production. This distinction is deliberate. Nexus's CEO is a former McKinsey consultant who saw firsthand how advisory firms struggle with technology delivery: brilliant strategists defining what should be built, then handing specifications to developers who lack the business context to build it well. Nexus was designed to collapse that gap. FDEs:

  • Identify the highest-impact use cases first. Not from a generic playbook, but by analyzing your specific operations, systems, and bottlenecks.
  • Design agents that fit your reality. Not theoretical architectures, but production agents tailored to your workflows, edge cases, and business logic.
  • Handle integration complexity. So your team does not have to become platform experts or pull engineers off product work.
  • Manage organizational change. Because deploying AI at scale is 10% technology and 90% organizational change. FDEs help frame the change, train teams, build confidence through small wins, and address concerns.
  • Optimize continuously. Agents improve with use. FDEs help analyze performance, refine escalation logic, and scale agents to new teams and processes.

The difference is structural. FDEs are embedded to transfer capability, not to create dependency. Their success is measured by your team's independence, not by how many hours they bill. When the engagement matures, your team operates independently. With a consulting model, the engagement often needs to continue (or restart) for the solution to keep working. And because the consulting firm's revenue depends on that continuation, there is no structural incentive to make you self-sufficient.

The timeline gap: weeks vs. months compounds quickly

Consider a practical scenario. Your VP of Sales wants an agent that monitors enterprise accounts for buying signals and routes intelligence to account executives.

With Deloitte: Discovery and scoping (3-4 weeks), solution design (4-6 weeks), development and integration (8-12 weeks), testing and UAT (3-4 weeks), deployment and change management (4-6 weeks). Total: 5-8 months. Cost: $500K-$1M+ depending on team size and complexity. Ask yourself: is there a structural incentive to compress that timeline? Each phase is billable. Each phase extension is additional revenue. The solution works for the original requirements. When the VP wants to add a new data source or change the scoring model, you re-engage.

With Nexus: Forward Deployed Engineer scopes the use case with your team (week 1), configures the agent with integrations to your CRM and data sources (weeks 2-3), tests with real data and iterates (week 3-4), deploys to production (week 4-5). Total: 4-5 weeks. When the VP wants changes, the sales ops team makes them directly on the platform.

Lambda ran exactly this calculation. Their CTO concluded: the opportunity cost of engineering time was too high, and the consulting timeline did not match the business need. They deployed in days what would have taken months through either internal build or external engagement.

This gap compounds as you move beyond a single agent. Each new consulting engagement requires a new scoping cycle. Each new Nexus agent builds on the foundation already in place. Lambda went from one agent to an expanding fleet, with each new agent deploying faster than the last.

Pricing: day rates vs. per-agent pricing

Deloitte's pricing follows professional services economics. A team might include a partner ($500+/hour), a senior manager ($350-450/hour), two managers ($250-350/hour), and two to three analysts ($150-250/hour). Blended rates for an AI engagement typically run $2,500-3,500+/day per consultant. A five-person team for six months: $1.5M or more.

These costs scale linearly. Two agents require roughly twice the consulting time. Ten agents across different departments require multiple parallel workstreams, each with its own team. Ongoing support and optimization require retainer engagements or new statements of work.

Nexus pricing is per-agent, tied to value delivered. The 3-month POC has a defined cost tied to specific, measurable outcomes. Annual contracts scale with agent deployment, not with consultant headcount. The economics improve as you deploy more agents because the platform foundation, integrations, and team capability are already in place.

For enterprises deploying AI across multiple departments and use cases, the cumulative cost difference between consulting-led and platform-led approaches is significant. Not because Deloitte is overpriced (their rates reflect genuine expertise and overhead), but because the model itself scales differently and the incentives point in different directions. The consulting model rewards selling more hours. The platform model rewards delivering more value. Over 12 months and multiple use cases, that structural difference compounds.


Frequently asked questions

Can we use Deloitte for strategy and Nexus for execution?

Yes. This is a pattern we see, and it is often the best of both worlds. Enterprises engage Deloitte (or McKinsey, BCG, Accenture) for AI strategy, roadmap development, and organizational readiness. Then they use Nexus to execute on the prioritized use cases: deploying production agents quickly, with business teams owning the outcome. The strategy work is not wasted. It provides the roadmap. Nexus provides the execution engine. This approach also mitigates the incentive misalignment risk: you get the consulting firm's strategic depth without the structural pressure to extend execution timelines.

Deloitte just launched Zora AI. Does that close the gap?

Zora AI, announced in March 2025, is Deloitte's agentic AI platform built on NVIDIA AI. It currently offers pre-built agents for finance, procurement, and sales & marketing, with supply chain, human capital, and customer service on the roadmap. It is a meaningful step toward product-led delivery. However, as of early 2026, Zora AI is still in early rollout. Deloitte planned to deploy it for thousands of internal users by end of 2025. The platform is new, and enterprise deployments are in early stages. Nexus has been in production with enterprise customers (Orange, Lambda, and others) delivering measurable financial outcomes. The maturity gap is real today, though it may narrow over time. The deeper question is whether the delivery model changes. Even with a platform, Deloitte's revenue still comes from consulting engagements, day rates, and project scoping. If Zora AI is delivered through the same consulting-wrapped model with the same incentive structure, the structural dynamics described above remain unchanged.

We are in a regulated industry. Can Nexus handle compliance?

Nexus is SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, and GDPR certified. Every agent decision is traceable. Full audit trails are built in because agents operate within existing enterprise systems (Slack, Teams, CRM). Role-based access control, decision transparency, and escalation logging are standard. Nexus has deployed in telecom (Orange Group, multi-billion euro operators), financial services, and automotive distribution. At Orange, the result was 100% compliance with full visibility into every agent decision. That said, if your primary constraint is navigating a specific regulatory framework where Deloitte has established relationships with the regulator, their regulatory expertise and brand credibility may be necessary alongside (not instead of) the platform.

How does Nexus compare to Deloitte on industry expertise?

Deloitte has deeper bench strength across more industries. Their consultants bring decades of sector-specific knowledge, and the Deloitte AI Institute produces respected research on AI adoption patterns across verticals. Nexus's expertise is focused: enterprise AI agent deployment across sales, marketing, customer support, HR, and operations. The platform is industry-agnostic (agents work across telecom, SaaS, professional services, automotive, fintech), but the depth comes from FDEs who understand the patterns of deploying AI agents in enterprise environments, not from sector-specific consulting expertise. For most internal business workflow automation, the enterprise AI deployment expertise matters more than industry consulting knowledge. For industry-specific regulatory transformation, Deloitte's depth may be necessary.

Our leadership trusts Deloitte. How do we make the case for Nexus?

This is common, and it is a legitimate concern. Deloitte's brand provides organizational air cover that smaller vendors cannot. Two approaches work well. First, position Nexus as complementary: "Deloitte helped us define the strategy; Nexus helps us execute it faster and at lower cost." Second, let the POC speak for itself. Every Nexus engagement starts with a 3-month proof of concept tied to measurable outcomes. You can run it alongside existing initiatives and compare results directly. When your team sees production agents delivering outcomes in weeks rather than months, the conversation shifts from brand trust to demonstrated value. A third framing that resonates with leadership: explain the incentive alignment difference. You are not criticizing Deloitte's people. You are pointing out that the consulting business model profits from longer engagements, while a platform model profits from faster value delivery. Most executives understand that incentive structures shape outcomes, and they appreciate when someone makes that observation transparently.

What does the 3-month POC look like?

Every engagement starts with a 3-month proof of concept tied to specific, measurable outcomes defined upfront. Most agents are in production within the first 2-6 weeks. A Forward Deployed Engineer is embedded with your team for the entire period. You see the results, measure the impact, and decide whether to continue. You can exit anytime. This is why our POC-to-contract conversion rate is 100%: we do not move forward unless the value is clear.

Is Deloitte's AI work actually consulting, or are they building a product now?

Both, increasingly. Zora AI represents Deloitte's move toward product-led delivery. But the delivery model remains consulting-wrapped: you still engage a Deloitte team, the team deploys and configures the platform, and ongoing support follows Deloitte's professional services model. The fundamental economics (people-based billing, project-scoped engagements, external dependency for changes) have not changed, even as the underlying technology becomes more productized. And the fundamental incentive has not changed either: Deloitte earns revenue from consulting hours, not from platform adoption. A product wrapped in a consulting delivery model still carries the structural incentive to extend, add phases, and maintain dependency. There is also the question of who is actually deploying Zora. If the consultants configuring it for your business are the same advisory-trained professionals who managed previous engagements, the advisory layer persists even when the underlying technology improves. A better platform does not automatically create a builder culture. Nexus was built platform-first from day one, and FDEs are engineers who build and ship, not consultants who coordinate and advise. The difference is not technology. It is the delivery model, the ownership model, the builder culture, and the incentive structure behind all three.


Worth exploring?

If your team has been evaluating consulting-led AI initiatives and wrestling with the timeline, cost, and dependency trade-offs, the question worth asking is: who is structurally incentivized to deliver results quickly? When a consulting firm earns more the longer a project runs, and a platform earns more the faster you see value and expand, those incentives shape everything: timelines, complexity, ownership, and cost. It might be worth seeing how enterprises like Orange and Lambda approached the same decision.

Orange is a multi-billion euro telecom operator with 120,000+ employees who could have engaged any consultancy. They deployed AI agents in 4 weeks, achieved $4M+ in yearly revenue impact, and their business team owns the agents.

Lambda is a $4B+ AI company with world-class engineers who could have built anything internally. They deployed in days what would have taken months. Anticipated value: more than $7M by 2026.

Every Nexus engagement starts with a 3-month proof of concept tied to specific outcomes. Forward Deployed Engineers work alongside your team from day one. You see results before committing. You can exit anytime.

[Read how Orange achieved $4M+ revenue impact] (case study)


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Every engagement starts with a 3-month proof of concept tied to specific, measurable business outcomes. Forward Deployed Engineers embed with your team from day one.