Leaders, I want you to imagine this…

You get brand new skiis, brand new boots, and high tech goggles. 

You get on the ski lift, enjoying the beautiful scenery, then you reach the top. The bar goes up, you pick up your left ski, then FALL. You trip. The ski lift stops. And everyone’s laughing at you (even the group of 10 year olds). 

This will be you with AI if you don’t invest at least half of your investment into people. Whether a Fortune 500, a scrappy startup, or an AI talent platform yourself, talent is the glue that makes technology transformation work.  

Specifically you need three people – AI experts, strategy experts, and execution leads. And what’s the best way to find, adapt, and scale your team? Flexible talent (obviously). 

In this newsletter we’ll explore why, along with showing how different industries are embracing the flexible workforce.

– Matthew Mottola, CEO

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What’s In This Edition 

• 👩 Flexible consulting – How talent platforms are disrupting AND helping consulting

• 💼 Enterprise challenge – How might we approve and integrate multiple talent platforms

• 🤖 Emergency AI – 4.5/5 on the freakout scale…experts breakdown what’s real vs hype

• 🤯 Stat of the week – 17.7% CAGR for global freelance platforms 

• 🎧 Meet Hyer – The front line workforce meets flexible talent 

👩

Is Flexible Talent Coming For Consulting?

Consulting was an early beach head for freelance talent platforms. Pioneers like Catalant and Business Talent Group in the US, Talmix in the UK, Weem in France, Expert Powerhouse in Germany, Outvise in Spain, Lynk in Asia, and Expert 360 opened one of the most promising segments of the flexible workforce.

Today’s wave of consulting platforms are opening up new regions, using new models, and both competing and collaborating with traditional consulting. Take FinTalent, a buy-side M&A focused talent platform in Europe. Or Movemeon, a Private Equity focused consultant platform in the UK. Or Khibraty, an expert platform that acts as the front door to the Middle East to other talent platforms. 

Some innovative models today are fundamental detours that the FTE based model of consulting can’t copy. Take the growing fractional movement. Fractional freelancers are executive level, bridging the gap between consultant and executive, along with owning strategy and execution. Platforms like GigX, TechCXO, Shiny, Authentic, and Vendux in the US, along with communities like Portfolio Collective in the UK, Fractional Exec in Australia, and Portfolio Careers in Asia are leading the way.  

Matthew recently covered this in Entrepreneur Magazine.

Leading flexible talent CEO’s also weighed in.

• Dimitrio Gómez, CEO of Catalis, – “Similar to AI, flexible talent is a key enabler to increase the value delivered in strategy and operations consulting – traditional firms partnering with consulting talent marketplaces will be better positioned tos win. From a regional perspective, LATAM (not only Mexico) is an untapped market as it has high availability of qualified independent consultant and is strategically located to serve the whole Americas region.”

• Niclas Thelander, Founder of Outsized – “We don’t see this shift as a disruption so much as an evolution – one that’s been building for years and is now accelerating, at least across our regions. Independent consultants, boutique firms, and large consultancies are collaborating more than ever, creating a more agile and client-focussed ecosystem. If done in the right way, there are many winners.”

• Marty Kaufman, CEO of Indie Intel – “Personally I’m not signaling the end of traditional consulting but I think we both see where the growth (both in volume and consulting rates!) will come from these next few years.” 

💬

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💡

Enterprise Challenge Of The Week

F50 Tech Company – How do we compliantly increase our talent platforms that are approved and integrated within our flexible talent program? 

We want to do this so that we can (1) diversify our talent platform base, (2) access more specialized skills, (3) provide a better hiring manager experience for specific working teams, and these working teams are asking for account managers that understand their function, i.e. marketing needs someone to talk marketing strategy with them, (4) increase the geo’s that we can operate in, (5) increase languages, (6) incubate us from geopolitical risks by being able to have full global coverage with full global visibility.

Should every platform subcontract under the original platform? Should this go through our VMS or MSP’s? Are there aggregation technologies that give our hiring managers a single pane of glass? 

We’ve tested this with 2 other talent platforms. The access, speed, and hiring manager experience exceeded our goals. But the cost was too high, we were seeing 60-100% markups.

💬

>> Submit your solution >>

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🤖

What’s Real vs What’s Hype

AI Experts Weigh In

Last Friday we brought together four leading AI experts to explore DeepSeek, Stargate, and covered everything from cutting-edge AI models to real-world applications transforming industries.

Our Quick Takeaways:

1. It’s real. On the 1 to 5 scale, 1 being business as usual, 5 being stop everything and react, our panelists gave it a 4.5.

2. It’s hitting 60 to 80% of hiring, legal, and software development. 

3. It’s enabling executives to execute again, and mid to entry level roles to be automated or significantly reduced. For example, Matt Coatney brought up that the legal ratio of of associate to lawyer is now 1:1.

Our biggest takeaway – tech is only half the investment, at least 50% of your AI budget needs to go to people, whether upskilling internally or hiring externally. In both cases, flexible talent is a shortcut.

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🔎

Stat Drop

17.7% expected CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for global freelance platforms for 2025 to 2030

Source: Grand View Research

💬

>> Access 200+ Stats >>

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🎧

Front Line Workers Join The Flexible Workforce

Flexible talent 1.0 was built for creatives, writers, and remote laptop workers. But what about hands-on, in-person… the backbone of the global workforce? Assembly line workers, restaurant staff, electricians, plumbers, and countless others whose work happens beyond a computer screen.

This front line workforce is a massive opportunity. Allied Market Research estimates the front line worker training market to be $21.9 Billion in 2023, and estimated to be $98.3 Billion by 2033 (a 16.2% CAGR). 

Deeper than the data, this industry needs creative solutions since it suffers from three massive problems:

• High churn – the front line has the highest rate of dropping out from workforce participation, along with the highest rate of churn, attrition, and the lowest rate of retention.

• High cost – the management of front line workers is increasingly expensive, with large percentages of businesses saying they can’t operate under the existing labor cost structure. 

• High FTE burnout – front line managers are pushed well beyond their responsibilites, leading to burnout and eventual churn. 

Talent Platforms are a promising solution since they enable front line managers to easily scale workers needed within hours.

In Dave’s episode we learned that most front line talent teams plan 80 to 95% of their workforce, and react to the rest. This creates predictable shortages, with managers having to pick up the slack. The result is that companies rack up overtime, front line managers burn out, and companies can’t meet spontaneous demand, foregoing revenue and increasing cost. Instead, so long as Operations leaders bless managers to use talent platforms like Hyer, front line managers can use an app to meet unplanned demand in hours, along with building elastic networks of workers they like working with to reduce the risk of poor quality. It’s just like Uber, but for front line worker staffing.

We loved this episode, and know you will too!

Listen

Find 10+ front line worker solutions >>

☕️

Coffee On Us

Come hang with Human Cloud

• March 3rd and 4th: DC

• March 5th through 9th: SXSW, Austin, Texas

• Early April: Boston

• May 14 and 15: Freelance Unlocked, Berlin

• May 16 through 19: Paris

• May 20 through 22: London

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About Human Cloud

Human Cloud is the global advisory firm at the intersection of technology and work. Fueled with over a decade of experience scaling digital first models across various environments, Human Cloud bridges the gap between technology promise and commercial realization for digital first work models that will become the global default by 2030.  

Human Cloud helps three major segments of the global economy. (1) Human Cloud helps large, Fortune 500 enterprises integrate digital first work models within their talent strategy so they can scale digital first workforces. (2) Human Cloud helps industry solutions like talent platforms, talent providers, and talent applications adapt to enterprise needs, connect with industry peers, and access market intelligence so they can grow sustainable businesses. (3) Human Cloud helps governments and investment firms make strategic decisions into how their portfolios and initiatives should embrace freelance solutions.