Here’s the part of the Anthropic story most people are missing.
AI labs have realised that the model isn’t the product. The deployment is.
For two years, the pitch was simple: build the smartest model, sell access, let companies figure out the rest. But most companies don’t struggle to access AI. They struggle to make it change how their teams actually work.
So the labs are now doing that part themselves.
According to the Financial Times, Anthropic and London buyout firm Hg plan to open an AI consultancy in London and Berlin by year-end, placing engineers inside European companies to build #Claude into their daily work. The goal: a business worth over $10B within five years.
And it’s part of a pattern:
→ Ode, backed by Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs: around $1.5B
→ OpenAI’s Deployment Company, led by TPG with 19 partners: over $4B
→ Anthropic + Hg for Europe
Three lab-backed consulting firms in about six months. Accenture shares fell more than 4% the day the news broke. The market got the message faster than most boardrooms.
What this means for leaders:
1. The advisory layer is shrinking. When model builders work directly inside your company, traditional consultants have to justify their fees.
2. Implementation is the new competitive edge. Whoever owns the last mile owns the customer.
3. Sovereignty becomes real. When a US lab builds one model into your daily workflows, you’re not just buying software. Your processes and data get shaped around one provider, under another country’s laws. Leaving later means rebuilding how work gets done. If you think the cloud created strong dependencies, wait until AI runs your workflows. Before signing, ask: what will we still control in five years?
4. Your know-how becomes their knowledge. An embedded team learns how your best people decide and what makes your service valuable, then turns it into prompts, agents and workflows. Your data may not train the model, but expertise still travels. If they can deliver your value to your clients directly, you’ve paid for your own replacement. So ask who owns what gets built, what stays with you when the contract ends, and what should never leave the building.
The labs are coming to Europe to own the last mile. Make sure you still own the road.
#Sovereignty
