Transforming Professional Services: Dan Brown on Pragmatic AI

In this episode of The Margin, MGI Research Managing Directors Andrew Dailey and Igor Stenmark speak with Dan Brown, Chief Product Officer at Celonis, about the true impact of generative AI on professional services. Is it an existential threat, or a powerful accelerant? Drawing on experience at Microsoft and leading PSA vendors, Dan unpacks where GenAI delivers real value, where it falls short, and how firms can adopt a “pragmatic AI” strategy focused on impact, ease of deployment, and closed-loop feedback. They also explore the risks of AI hallucinations, pricing pressure, and why automation doesn’t replace trust.What You’ll Learn:Why GenAI is both an accelerant and a risk for services firmsWhere AI actually delivers value in professional services todayWhy trust, opinion-based work, and counterfactual thinking remain stubbornly humanHow rising expectations, tooling overload, and talent shortages are shaping AI adoptionThe “Pragmatic AI” framework used inside leading services and software organizations