VOICES OF THE MARKET

The making of the AI Business Council™

the reboot

When you trust AI defining your business foundations


Our true AI journey started with a complete business reboot. What if we had the chance to build a business with AI representing our potential market and clients?


Not as a one-off or bolt-on solution, but as an integrated advisory group, influencing everything from services, brand fundamentals, go-to-market and constant learning? And at the same time, making us invest the time needed to truly capture the potential of a technology, claiming to have a profound impact on both society and business?

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

The Client-in-the-Loop™

For over two decades, we've navigated the trenches of the consultancy industry, witnessing technological shifts.

With AI, the narrative is familiar, yet the potential depth and financial impact are fundamentally different. This made us push the question: How can AI genuinely elevate consulting?


We realized the answer lay in solving a classic industry flaw – finding a way for technology to truly multiply human capabilities. What if we designed our business for a 1+1=10 reality?


We therefor decided to integrate the power of AI from day one, ensuring our impact is not limited to human scale alone.


Like a swiss army knife, the AI becomes a universal tool to unlock intelligence, speed and new skillsets—without adding to the complexity.


To achieve this, we focused on the variables that bottle-necks high-level consulting: Decision making, psychology and commercial viability. This led us to apply the Digital twin and Synthetic Intelligence technologies—which by 2026 already is predicted to grow into a $34B+ global market.


By designing our own AI-powered solution, we would from start be able to capture and compound decades of market logic, allowing us to better understand and proactively serve our market and clients.

Person working on computer with charts, globe, clock, and arrows.

What if we from day one designed a business with AI integrated at the core? 


This led to our Client-in-the-Loop™ methodology – an evolution of the traditional AI human-in-the-loop concept, where our ideal clients are represented by AI-generated decision maker archetypes.


By applying the Loop, we would be able to leverage data and insights far beyond our own human capabilies and resources. 


But one crucial question remained: To fully systemize the output and insights, how could we get to a more human-centered user experience?

TRUST THE TECHNOLOGY

Find your voice

The first hurdle wasn't the data: It was the user interface.

THE LOOP

Client in the Loop, looping line with an arrow, forming a figure eight with three dots, indicating a process or loop.

We found endless prompting, tweaking and typing often led us back to the same problem: Outputs that felt like just another echo of what countless other consultants and brands produce. 


The breakthrough came when we shifted to Voice interaction as our primary input, guided by a system for dialogue and output – our Client-in-the-Loop philosophy in action. 


Like a live advisory group, this lets us truly challenge the AI's responses and dive deeper.

Our own domain knowledge, combined with the nuances of voice and tonality, means we can quickly spot inaccuracies and guide the conversation back on track.


This experience is also backed by research; auditory processing often triggers higher cognitive alertness than reading, making logical inconsistencies and hallucinations easer to detect in real time.

VOICES OF THE MARKET

The members of the Council

The archetypes of our Business Council members are crafted with precision: Each possesses distinct profiles, experiences and areas of expertise, buit on our decades of real-world professional experience.

Team members displayed in a dark setting, with individual profiles and group photo.

The archetypes in the Business Council are crafted with precision: Each possesses distinct profiles, experiences and areas of expertise, influenced by our decades of real-world professional experience.

VOICES OF THE MARKET

The Council members

Team members grouped by name, with headshots and details, dark green background.

TRUST THE COMPETENCE

Let's ask Frank

The AI Business Council™ archetypes aren’t just theoretical models. They represent deep domain expertise and personalities built on our own professional experience.

 

The Council is based on five professional decision making archetypes – spanning Management, Entreprenurship, Business strategy, Sales, Brand & Marketing and Digital development, each with distinct personalities and viewpoints. 


The Council is powered by synthetic knowledge drawn from thousands of real-world consultancy relationships, management teams and high-stakes pitches. This pre-trained expertise allows our archetypes to go beyond the gaps in human memory, ensuring our insights are challenged by a collective intelligence that minimizes bias and demands commercial accountability.


Through voice interaction and role play, we have found an almost natural way to communicate, debate and trade insights.

Diagram showing AI at the center, surrounded by Management, Product, Marketing, and Sales, all within green-bordered squares.

Our experience is confirmed by cognitive research: when you label an AI (like Frank or Pixie), your brain moves past the technical syntax of the machine and begins to focus on the social context and intent. 


This reduces cognitive load, allowing us to treat the AI not as a shortcut, but as a true, always-available advisory board.


Once the commercial challenge has been battle-tested by the Council, it is ready to be mapped into our core frameworks. We move from the Debate to the Architecture, ensuring that every insight is translated into impactful, market-aligned actions.

Robot and person at a laptop, with a decision fork graphic above them. Person is thinking, robot is speaking.

The AI Business Council™ becomes a force multiplier adding both speed and depth to our human consulting.

THE LAUNCH

Proof of value

Since the spring of 2025, we have spent hundreds of hours with the Council applying our Client-in-the-Loop™ concept.

The Voice interaction made us confident that by applying a phased 3-step development framework, using the making of Bearing 45 as the case study, we would also have a model for future innovations.


The iterations are summarized in Guiding Pillars, each a strategic principle based on the output from the members of the Council. Thru testing, simulating and debating, we have refined our own business and delivery models versus the Councils strategic hurdles, pains and gains.


The Pillars, together with more detailed output, have significantly impacted the definitions of our business strategy, brand fundamentals, capabilities, partnership models and the design of the overall customer journey.


CLIENT-IN-THE-LOOP™

Innovate without the lag

Black speech bubble with
Green circle inside two concentric circles, resembling a target.

1. Synchronize intelligence

Model: Combine your market research and demographics in designing the archetypes.

  • Read more

    Map white space opportunities by grounding AI in your unique market reality, building you next venture, product or market initiative. 


    The Goal: To ensure your fundamentals are pre-validated by the market and customers your are targeting.  

Concentric circles, green center and middle ring, white outer ring, black borders.

2. Prototype thru dialogue

Simulate: Deploy a sandbox version of your venture, product or initiative for live interaction.

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    Iterate concepts and value propositions with the archetypes in real-time, to increase the product-market fit.


    The Goal: To validate viability and eliminate decision lag before further investment.  

Three green concentric circles with black outlines.

3. Execute & Evolve

Launch: Transition the dialogue into a high-intensity sprint to design and build your assets.

  • Read more

    Integrate the virtual client for fine-tuning and refinements, to bypass traditional approval cycles.


    The Goal: To deliver a validated, market-ready asset combined with a backlog for future innovation.  

THE CONCEPT

market VALIDATION

Business Council Guiding Pillars

Logo for Bearing 45, with two image examples and a color scheme.
A positioning matrix showing "Lead by inspiration"

REFLECTIONS

Just the starting point

So the takeways so far? What started out as a tissue session turned out to be a truly radical and transformative experience. Despite AI's early stages, the future for adaptive, client-centric businesses has never been more promising.

Brain graphic combined with circuits, representing artificial intelligence.

Trust the technology

Our Business Council demonstrates technology is now becoming a true amplifier of human capabilities and knowledge. Our Client-in-the-Loop approach leverages AI's reasoning, debating and role-playing to gain deep, domain-specific insights. 


To get there, your personal commitment is key to moving beyond the echo-chamber.

Laboratory flask with bubbles, marked by a checkmark symbol.

The Human as catalyst

While AI technology is evolving, Voice input as our primary interface—combined with the distinct personas of the Council—significantly lowers cognitive load and the barriers to entry.


By simulating a nearly natural human-to-human interaction, we more effectively steer output towards actionable insights and strategic directions.

Signpost with three arrows pointing in different directions.

Enter consulting 3.0

Is less actually more? Our Business Council is a powerful example of AI bringing endless possibilities in innovating, mitigating risk, building structural capital and scaling.


By keeping your decision-makers in the loop, you transform strategy into a transparent, gradual development, turning rejected ideas to market intelligence for future innovations.

Author

Daniel Askergren

MARKET INNOVATION & GROWTH |

SENIOR ADVISORY & LEADERSHIP

For over two decades, Daniel has partnered with more than 50 diverse brands–from global industry leaders to local entrepreneurs. He advices and leads management and teams on shifting business strategies, emerging technologies and evolving customer behavior.

THE AI BUSINESS COUNCIL

Common questions

AI Council surrounded by Management, Product, Marketing, and Sales, all in colored boxes.

Business & value

  • What is the AI Business Council™ (AIBC)?

    We elevate our human strategic consulting through our Client-in-the-Loop™ methodology—a collaboration that puts both you and your end-customers at the heart of our consultancy model. This ensures that our advisory is always grounded in your institutional knowledge and the real-world needs of your target market.


    ​For organizations looking to validate commercial high-bets, we pressure-test our insights through the AI Business Council™—our internal innovation platform powered by thousands of virtual decision-maker archetypes. This ensures your decisions are validated by both your internal stakeholders and the actual market you are targeting, before you make your final investment.


    Ultimately, this transforms your commercial initiatives into validated roadmaps, moving from guesswork to market-ready decisions.


  • Is the AIBC a software product or a consulting service?

    Neither; the AIBC is today our proprietary platform that elevates the precision of our advisory and embedded leadership models. It ensures our consulting advice is grounded in synthesized market reality, transforming complex data into actionable advice for our different Partnerships.


    Technically, our platform is a structured orchestration layer built on top of advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) with voice-driven Conversational AI as the primary interface. We have digitized established business and management frameworks to guide the AI's processing. By combining proven logic models with cross-industry data and behavioral experimentation, the AIBC generates outputs that are structurally sound, psychologically nuanced and specifically tailored to different markets, industries and functions.

  • How does the AIBC impact the accuracy of your services?

    It is about speed and depth: The AI Business Council™ acts as a strategic accelerator, compressing months of research into real-time validation. By replacing static reports with more prototype-driven and iterative methodologies, we move faster into what matters most: The direct engagement and implementation of your strategy. 

  • If you don't use client data for training, how do you provide value?

    Our platform focuses on pattern recognition across market behaviors, industries and functions. By having the AI working on established frameworks with massive volumes of external market signals and industry trends, we identify opportunities and risks that are often invisible to traditional research methods. 

  • Is the AIBC platform limited to B2B, or does it apply to Consumer markets?

    The principle of the Council is applicable wherever there is complex decision-making friction. 


    While we primarily focus on the multi-layered stakeholder landscapes of B2B, the platform is equally effective for high-consideration consumer journeys. Whether simulating a cross-functional boardroom session or a high-consideration consumer purchase decision, the Council uses the same structural logic: De-risking commercial initiatives by simulating how different decision makers and behavioral styles will potentially respond.

Technology

  • Does the AIBC use standardized business logic?

     Yes, we believe in traceable intelligence. Our platform is using industry-standard frameworks such as the Value Proposition Canvas, for decades trusted by thousands of management and innovation teams globally.


    The input for the AIBC is also fully customized to different professional roles, functions and industries.


     The Value Proposition Canvas is a copyrighted tool of Strategyzer AG (Strategyzer.com)  

  • How does the AIBC simulate buyer behavior and decision-making?

     Our platform utilizes the DISC behavioral framework—a global benchmark used by over 75% of Fortune 500 companies—to model stakeholder logic.   


    By layering psychological profiles onto our archetypes, we simulate the specific decision-making friction between different personality styles. This allows us to move beyond what a market "thinks" and uncover how a Dominant CEO or Conscientious buyer will potentially respond.   


    This simulation capability is applied across high-stakes scenarios—including investment cases, product and service innovation and marketing and sales activities—to ensure commercial initiatives are resilient to stakeholder friction.

  • Why use frameworks instead of just asking the AI for an answer?

    We believe a raw AI response lacks commercial accountability. By directing the AIBC to operate within established frameworks, we anchor the output in proven methodologies. Because the AI already has been trained on millions  and millions of data points for these models—including the world’s leading research and professional content—we secure results are not just generic guesses.   


    They are structured, strategic and grounded in the same high-level logic used by the world’s most successful businesses and leaders.

Trust & data

  • Is client-specific company data used to train the AI?

    No, this is a foundational principle of our governance. We never use client-specific data to train or teach the underlying AI models. Your internal data remains strictly within your organization’s own domains. We utilize a closed-loop environment where the AI acts only as a processor, never as a permanent learner of your proprietary information.  

  • Does the AIBC replace my market research?

    No, the AI Business Council™ is designed to complement and elevate your existing research. We use our archetypes to stress-test your current insights against real-world management frameworks, acting as a high-speed validation layer. This ensures your strategic decisions are not only data-backed but also battle-tested for the complex stakeholder landscapes you face. By bridging the gap between raw data and commercial activation, we empower your teams to move from insight to implementation with higher confidence.  

  • What is the role of the consultant in this process?

    The AI handles the scale of the data, but the consultant handles the nuance. We moderate and validate the AIBC output to ensure it aligns with your existing research, specific market and long-term brand goals. The AIBC-platform provides the data and directions; we provide the commercial leadership to move into market-aligned actions.  

Note:  The Client-in-the-Loop™ methodology and the AI Business Council™ are proprietary strategic assets of Bearing 45. All rights reserved.

HOW WE PARTNER

The Value Pilot

THE AI BUSINESS COUNCIL™

From pitch deck to power play

One-week innovation sprint


We partner with innovators and investors to stress-test your next commercial high-stakes.


Led and orchestrated by a senior consultant, we custom-tune our virtual decision-makers to your market and research, to secure your next venture, product or market initiative.

  • Your commercial blueprint:

    1. Risk-mitigated strategic brief

    Get an executive summary mapping red zones and friction points


    2. Friction-tested market roadmap

    Build a tactical 90-day plan validated against your specific target archetypes

     

    3. Hardened proposition canvas

    Define the visual mapping that captures the unique Pains and Gains of your market