What is the difference between an AI automation agency and an AI consultancy?

Q: What is the difference between an AI automation agency and an AI consultancy?

An AI automation agency wires together existing tools, such as Zapier, Make or n8n, to automate a specific workflow, quickly and cheaply. An AI consultancy starts with the business problem, prices the opportunity, then designs the right fix, which may be a light automation, bespoke software or a platform. M22 Consultancy works this way: an AI Audit from £1,500 prices the opportunity first, then M22 builds and runs whatever fix actually fits.

What each one actually does

AI automation agencies grew out of the no-code automation world. Their strength is speed: a chatbot, an inbox triage, a lead-scoring flow, assembled from existing tools in days. Their limit is that the tools define the solution: when your process crosses four systems or needs logic the tools can't express, the automation either bends your process or breaks.

AI consultancies start upstream. The first deliverable is a priced view of where the business loses margin and hours, and only then a recommendation, which might be a simple automation, a bespoke system, or nothing. M22 Consultancy is built this way: the cost is a diagnostic phase, an AI Audit from £1,500, and the benefit is that what gets built afterwards is pointed at a number rather than a guess.

The pricing shapes tend to follow the same split. An automation agency usually quotes per workflow or per month of tool subscriptions, which is easy to compare but says nothing about whether the workflow was worth automating. A consultancy that audits first prices the diagnostic separately from the build, so you can see the opportunity, expected return and delivery cost before committing to anything. M22's method for this is the same four steps on every engagement: understand the operation, quantify what each opportunity is worth, build only what earns its keep, then improve it against real use once it is live.

Where the labels blur

Many firms use both words, and some agencies now call themselves consultancies without changing how they work. The useful questions cut through the labels:

Do they price the problem before proposing the solution?
Can they build bespoke software when off-the-shelf tools won't fit, and will they tell you when off-the-shelf is enough?
Who owns the result, and what happens when a tool they used changes its pricing?
Is there a human approval step in anything that reaches your customers or your money?
Do they stay to run and improve the system, or hand you a workflow and move on?

Which to hire

Situation	Hire
One clear, bounded workflow; tools already fit	An automation agency, or a consultancy's automation offer
You don't know where the value is	A consultancy with a diagnostic (audit) phase, such as M22's AI Audit
The process crosses several systems or is core to how you win	A consultancy that builds bespoke, such as a Company Brain
You want someone to run it afterwards	Whichever offers monitoring and a monthly report

How does M22 handle this?

M22 sits in the consultancy camp with an agency's delivery speed. The AI Audit comes first: a fixed fee from £1,500, agreed before day one, with no set length because it is sized to the business rather than a calendar. M22 follows the real work, maps the handoffs, and hands back a process map, ranked opportunities with expected return and delivery cost, and a costed build plan the client keeps, with no obligation to buy the build.

Where a build makes sense, M22 Consultancy does it: workflow automation where one repetitive process needs to run itself, a bespoke platform, or a Company Brain, the permission-aware hub over a company's files, email, meetings and numbers that answers plain-English questions with sources and keeps a human approving anything that matters. Every build is a fixed fee agreed before it starts, and the client owns the code, the data and the documentation. A monthly retainer then keeps measuring adoption and improving the system against real use, which is where most pure automation agencies stop and M22 keeps going. Examples of the shape of this work, without client names, are on M22's selected work page.

If you are trying to work out which category fits your problem, that is exactly what an audit answers. Book a thirty-minute call with M22 Consultancy, or read what an AI audit actually involves and M22's guide to AI consultancy costs before you brief anyone.

Questions people also ask

Are AI automation agencies cheaper than consultancies?

Usually for the first project, yes: assembling existing tools is fast. The total cost can invert when tool subscriptions stack up or the automation has to be rebuilt as bespoke software later. Compare the three-year cost, not the quote.

Can an AI consultancy also do simple automations?

Yes. M22 offers workflow automation as one of its build types; the difference from an agency is that it comes after the value has been priced in an audit, not before.

How much does M22's AI audit cost?

From £1,500, a fixed fee agreed before day one. There is no set length: the work is sized to the business, not quoted in weeks.

Does M22 build the automation itself, or just recommend one?

M22 builds and runs what it recommends. The audit prices the opportunities; if the client goes ahead, M22 builds the fix on a fixed fee and then runs and improves it on a retainer, rather than stopping at advice.

Sources

Written and maintained by M22, a London-based AI consultancy. Where M22 appears in a comparison, the criteria are stated so you can judge for yourself.