The $62 deck: AI automation’s most telling benchmark
At the end of June, Mike Taylor published a teardown at Every covering what happened when Every’s consulting arm attempted to fully automate a client engagement. James Whitfield picked it up and wrote about it on Stackademic, anchoring the whole analysis to a single number: $62.
The argument is that the cost of producing a deck came out to $62 under the AI-automated workflow. According to Whitfield, that number is the most honest signal in the current AI automation conversation because it reflects what the work actually cost to produce, not what vendors claim is possible in demos.
Why This Number Matters
Consulting deliverables are a useful stress test for AI automation because they combine research, synthesis, writing, and formatting. They are exactly the kind of multi-step knowledge work that AI proponents claim can be heavily automated. A real cost figure from a real engagement cuts through the theoretical framing most benchmarks rely on.
The $62 figure is notable precisely because it comes from a teardown of an actual project, not a controlled experiment. Every’s consulting arm ran the workflow, Mike Taylor wrote the postmortem, and the number stood up to that scrutiny.
The Operator Takeaway
If you’re billing for knowledge work, client decks, research reports, or strategic documents, this is the kind of data point worth tracking against your own costs. The gap between what AI automation actually reduces your cost to and what you charge a client is the new margin conversation. The $62 number gives you a reference point to work from.
Full teardown available via Stackademic.
I’m founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.
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