The intelligence agency for professional services
Taleist finds out why clients choose one professional services firm over another, then builds AI that helps your firm become the one they choose. There are two ways we help. Start with the one your firm has already decided to fund.
The problem
Lose a pitch and the feedback is the same every time: “essentially similar to the other firms we considered”. Win one and nobody can tell you why. So positioning gets set on what the firm believes about itself, and the next pitch starts from the last one.
Most firms have now added AI. Out of the box, AI tools write the same pitch faster, from the same files, in the same words as every firm with the same tool.
That’s two problems. One is not knowing what clients care about. The other is a pitching habit that AI only speeds up. Each has its own fix.
Two ways in
Each approach leads to the other. Pick the one that matches the work your firm has already approved.
Consulting-grade AI
Redesign how your team pitches, so the work starts from the client. Then get advisors steeped in your firm’s knowledge and the craft of persuasion, running inside the AI your firm has already approved.
Searchlight Group rebuilt how it pitched, then the AI it pitches with. Its share of proposals won went from 35% to 85% in 2025.
For firms with a budget for AI capability, AI training or BD effectiveness.
An ASI study puts your questions to Client Proxies modelled on the clients in your market. It reports what they care about, what rules a firm out before the pitch, and the words they use for both.
A major accountancy firm came back for a second study. Its champion now uses the findings to train managers and run key accounts.
For firms with a budget for client insight, market research or positioning.
Both services, one firm
A global law firm came to Taleist with a change problem: bringing its partners onto a new CRM. An ASI study found the message that would convince partners, and the firm’s team now uses AI built on the research every day to tailor its change communications.
Then the firm came back for an AI-powered positioning advisor for its marketing and pitch teams. Then AI brains for its pitching engine. Now it’s using our AI for image tagging and selection.
Unsurprisingly, the firm made us sign an NDA, so we can’t tell you who it is.
The Goliath report
334 Client Proxies, modelled on Australian corporate legal clients, on how they choose between the firm they have and a challenger. Which work moves and which never does. What a firm must prove before a client will switch. What rules a firm out before the pitch.
Every firm is the incumbent on some panels and the challenger on others. The findings read both ways.
Who does the work
Steven Lewis read law at Oxford, instructed international law firms as a client, and later worked in business development inside a top-tier Australian law firm. He has written direct-response copy since 1997, for clients including Rolex, Intel and Microsoft, and has worked with AI since early 2021, 21 months before ChatGPT launched.
Our research and writing have appeared in
Not sure which way in?
Tell us the work in front of you: the pitches you keep losing, the proposals that eat a week, the AI nobody can show a return on. You’ll hear which service fits. And if AI is the wrong answer, we’ll say so.
Prefer email? asi@taleist.agency