Anchor
AI shows up as faster typing — Copilot here, a chatbot there. Ask for the strategy and you get a list of tools. Useful, low risk, and easy to plateau.
AI strategy consulting
AI strategy consulting: choose the shape your AI will take.
The Helix Lab is an AI strategy consultancy. We combine AI, strategy and design. We map every AI initiative you run, show the strategy it actually adds up to, and help your leaders choose, fund and govern the shape they are willing to earn.
Where we work
Location.
Adelaide, working across Australia and worldwide.
The tell
Most AI strategies are a list of tools.
Before an organisation has chosen, its AI portfolio already makes a pattern. Three failure shapes show up as symptoms leaders recognise.
Shotgun
Thirty pilots, six vendors, a centre of excellence, and no single argument. Ask three leaders what the strategy is and you get three incompatible answers.
Drift
The board paper says agentic. The systems are still rules and assist. Governance documents sound more advanced than the deployments. Narrative ahead of capability.
Strategic Shapes
What a real AI strategy is.
Strategic Shapes is an AI strategy framework created by Suhit Anantula. It reads an organisation’s AI strategy from the pattern its initiatives make on the 9Q Grid. Three failure shapes (Anchor, Shotgun, Drift) show an organisation that has not chosen. Four strategic shapes (Spear, Shield, Spiral, Star) are deliberate choices, each trading a strength for a vulnerability leaders must govern.
Spear
Depth in one chosen region of the work. Strength competitors struggle to match; the vulnerability to govern is brittleness.
Shield
Governed, repeatable capability through the middle. Strength is endurance; the vulnerability to govern is inertia.
Spiral
Activity in the dynamic and exploratory cells; constant iteration. Strength is adaptability; the vulnerability to govern is instability.
Star
Capability through partners, platforms and ecosystems. Strength is leverage; the vulnerability to govern is dependency.
There is no perfect shape — only the one whose vulnerability you are willing to govern. Shapes are concentrations, not identities; hybrids are normal.
How we work
Explore, Evaluate, Execute, Elevate.
The Helix Path turns a foggy portfolio into a board-ready line, then into delivery only when something has earned a build.
- 01
Explore
Map every AI initiative you run. Make the real portfolio visible before anyone funds the next pilot.
- 02
Evaluate
Read the shape the portfolio already makes. Score what to fund, stop or defer, and set governance by trust — not by ambition slides.
- 03
Execute
Build only what has earned it — with Studio pods when production is the need, and Delete Before Digital when the process itself is the problem.
- 04
Elevate
Install an operating rhythm so the shape stays clear as new work arrives.
Strategy engagements typically run four to eight weeks.
What you get
A line the board can fund.
Board-ready AI strategy
Direction, trade-offs and the shape you are willing to earn — written for scrutiny, not for a pitch deck.
Scored AI portfolio
What to fund, stop or defer, with the dependencies and ownership made visible.
AI governance framework
Trust, decision rights and review points before higher-agency spend.
Proof
Named work and clear status.
Organisations we can name, with the status of the work as it stands.
RAA
Board-ready AI strategy, scored portfolio and governance framework before spend. Lab and engine in the paper are the proposed next stage.
City of Mitcham
Fifty-one use cases from the room. The rebuilt system is still in flight.
Pre-AI strategy and design
Boeing HorizonX, Cisco CHILL and NSW Government Policy Lab sit in the earlier practice lineage — design and lab craft before today’s AI strategy engagements.
Advisory programme
Timberlink.
Timberlink
A seat on the AI steering committee, facilitating the AI working group — advisory programme work with Helix.
Who it is for
Boards, councils, enterprise and public-impact leaders.
Boards and executives
When the question is direction, portfolio and governance — not another vendor demo.
Councils and government
National Australian local government and adjacent public-sector rooms that need a governed rhythm.
Enterprise operations
Industrial and estimating organisations that need a scoreable line before Studio delivery.
NFP and health
Boards that need clarity before spend.
Start small
The Clarity Scan.
A 2–4 week diagnostic that produces evidence, priorities and a defensible next move — before you fund the portfolio. For cost and fit, book a call.
Questions
FAQ
What is an AI strategy?
The deliberate pattern of where your organisation uses AI, how much agency it gives it, and what it accepts as the trade-off. It is not a tool list.
What are the four pillars of an AI strategy?
Most frameworks list vision, data, people and governance. They are necessary, but they stop short of telling you what to concentrate on. We add the choice: which shape you will earn.
What does an AI strategy consultant do?
Maps what you are really running, names the gaps between the story and the systems, helps leaders choose a direction, and sets the governance and delivery rhythm.
How do we know if our AI strategy is just pilots?
Ask three leaders to describe it. If you get three incompatible answers, you are in a Shotgun.
Is AI strategy different for councils and government?
Same method, different trust settings. Public scrutiny, transparency and assurance change what “earn” means before higher-agency AI.
AI strategy for Australian local governmentHow do we avoid overclaiming what our AI does?
Read the shape from deployments, not decks. That is the Drift test.
Related reading
Frameworks on suhitanantula.com
Let’s find the starting point
Ready to choose the shape you will earn?
Bring the portfolio as it is — tools, pilots, board papers and all. We can map what you are really running and agree a useful first step.
Start a conversation