The pace of change means that last year’s predictions about the future of BD & Marketing roles and structures in professional services have progressed into reality, and in some cases are accelerating beyond expectations.
What were forecasts twelve months ago are now becoming established trends. Here’s what we’re watching closely – no longer emerging, but firmly in motion – and what it means for the people building careers, and teams, in this space.
AI agents are on the org chart
The question is no longer whether AI agents will join professional services BDMC teams, it’s planning where they’ll sit, how to leverage and how to scale their impact while maintaining quality. Professional services firms, like organisations everywhere, will increasingly be built around human-agent teams, with professionals directing digital colleagues as part of the day job. It’s easy to see this becoming where people first cut their teeth in management: briefing, quality-controlling and directing AI agents, before they ever lead a team of people. It’s clear this is becoming a reality in some firms quicker than others, however experience in collaborating and utilising AI have become critical skills for the sector.
The unbundled role, and the skills that matter
For years, BD & Marketing job descriptions carried a familiar tension: firms wanted strategic, commercial, client-facing people, then loaded the role with directory submissions, CRM updates, reporting and credential management. Two different jobs, bundled into one. That bundle is now coming apart.
Roles are regularly being rescoped: through investment, restructure, elevation or a change of focus when someone leaves, and the new versions emphasise sophisticated activity aligned to revenue, strategic growth and client expectations. A solid proportion of the operational work that sat in prior versions of these roles is now managed through AI, automation and better process. Firms are moving at different paces – some transforming their entire go-to-market, others pursuing targeted efficiencies – but the shift in job descriptions is notable, and most visible in larger firms and teams.
With it comes a step change in what partners expect. These roles now trade on relationship depth, influence, the ability to spot and interpret opportunity, and trusted advice as well as increasingly on critical thinking, commercial judgement and leveraging quality AI output.
At a senior level, we’re seeing terrific examples of BD & Marketing professionals moving into broader commercial roles; for leaders, the work is now as much about strategy, commerciality and growth as leading the BD & Marketing function.
There is also a clear role for BD & Marketing professionals in understanding client expectations around AI: positioning the firm’s services on one hand, and preparing partners for conversations about value and pricing on the other.
The changing shape of the team
The accepted wisdom was that professional services team structures had moved from a pyramid to a rocket ship. The current trend in some firms is toward a diamond: a larger cohort of experienced professionals, often at Senior Manager level, in the middle. The benefit is that partners and directors get the elevation of support needed to move their businesses forward, unencumbered by operational work. The challenges are real too: career paths through a diamond are less obvious than through a pyramid hierarchy, and it raises the question of where the next generation of Managers and Senior Managers will come from when fewer Executives and Advisors sit beneath them. There’s still plenty of disparity across the market at this stage – with pyramids remaining more common in mid-sized and boutique firms.
Investment is continuing as structures reshape
We continue to see investment in BD & Marketing teams, with an elevation in the sophistication and impact of roles. It’s also not uncommon for a role to be rescoped and elevated mid-recruitment.
While parts of the market are seeing redundancies, many firms are simultaneously hiring for entirely new roles, their shape unmistakably influenced by AI and technology.
Increasingly, experienced BD professionals are taking on firm-wide AI projects or moving into senior AI leadership roles. The early fear was that AI would hollow out careers; the evidence points the other way, with most leaders expecting AI to let people take on more complex work sooner. The real story is redesign: less process work, more senior and strategic human roles, and capability that didn’t exist before.
AI culture is led from the top
Like any aspect of culture – whether around BD, wellbeing, hybrid working – AI culture is led from the top. There are examples in the market of Boards leading AI integration: providing tools, and interfaces between Board and leadership that sharpen Board papers and make best use of the Board’s time. There are others where we hear the Board is quite disconnected from how AI is being deployed across the firm. This difference has a big affect on engagement and culture, talent retention and attraction.
The talent question
With job descriptions and partner expectations changing at pace, it’s been fantastic to see so many professional services BDMC experts thrive as they step into roles that didn’t exist a year ago, coupled with some firms deliberately hiring from sectors they wouldn’t previously have considered to bridge new gaps in capability and strategy.
The firms that win won’t just be the ones that adopt the technology. They’ll be the ones that attract and keep the people who can lead and impact business growth within this new team structure and business model.
The predictions have become reality. The differentiator now is the talent at the centre of it.
Further reading / listening: Microsoft Work Trend Index (2025, 2026); Thomson Reuters 2026 AI in Professional Services Report; Thomson Reuters Future of Professionals 2026; 8am Legal Industry Report 2026; Shortlisted Podcast with Seldon Rosser & Lee Curtis 2025; the 2026 Australian AI in Marketing Benchmark Report, ACAM.
