Professional Services Automation, finally conversational

One AI for projects, staffing, ATS and T&M billing. The PSA your team will actually use, because it speaks plain English.

Traditional PSAs are dead (nobody admits it)

Classic Professional Services Automation platforms were born for the SAP/Oracle world: complex, slow, designed for IT managers. Modern consulting firms abandon them after 12 months.

Invisible ROI: lots of time entering data, little extracting it
Low adoption: consultants never update timesheets on time
Rigid reporting: every new request is a vendor ticket
Customization costs that exceed the license
Built for multinationals, not for 50-300 person firms

AI-native PSA: the difference is conversation

With hice.ai the Manager queries and modifies data by talking. AI understands context, intent, abbreviations, and industry jargon.

"What's our margin on the Enel project this quarter?" → revenue, cost, margin in 3 seconds
"Who has contracts ending within 30 days?" → consultants list with dates and renewal status
"Add 8 hours of Marco to the BNL project on Nov 15" → done, already in the timesheet
"Show Java candidates I've proposed but never presented" → filtered list ready for follow-up

Try it in chat

Examples you can ask:

Static demo of hice's AI chat.

What you get

AI resource management

AI knows who's available, when, with which skills and rate. Real-time.

Live project profitability

Margin per project calculated continuously, not at month-end.

T&M revenue forecast

Revenue forecasts based on allocated consultants and contractual rates.

Conversational timesheets

Consultants log hours via chat: AI structures and validates.

Native multi-tenant

For firms managing multiple brands or business units.

Open APIs

Integration with ERP, e-billing, payroll, BI tools.

The order in which a PSA rollout actually works

A PSA touches almost every process a firm has, which is why rolling it out all at once is the most common way to fail. The teams that succeed sequence it, and the sequence that works is nearly always the same because it follows where the data is created.

Hours and projects first, because they generate the economic record and produce a visible improvement at the first month-end. Then resourcing, which depends on knowing what the projects actually consume. Then billing, which depends on approved hours existing. Pipeline and reporting last, because they consume everything the earlier steps produce.

Projects and hours before anything else
Resourcing once real consumption data exists
Billing built on already-approved hours
Pipeline and analytics last, on complete data

Adoption is the whole project

A PSA that is technically live and half-used is worse than the spreadsheets it replaced, because the numbers now look authoritative while being incomplete. Adoption is not a phase at the end; it is the constraint the whole design has to respect.

Two decisions carry most of the weight. Every person must get something back from the data they enter, visible to them, within the first month. And the number of mandatory fields at first launch should be embarrassingly small — every field added before the habit forms costs adoption, and can be added later at almost no cost.

Minimum mandatory fields at launch, expanded later
Something useful returned to each person in month one
Old spreadsheets retired on a stated date, not gradually
Adoption measured per team, with a named owner

Integrations: what to connect and what to leave alone

The instinct is to integrate everything, and it is expensive in a way that only shows up in year two, when every upgrade requires regression-testing six connections. Each integration should earn its place by removing a re-keying step somebody performs weekly.

In most professional services firms three connections cover almost all the value: accounting, so billing data does not get retyped; the calendar, so availability is real; and identity, so joiners and leavers are handled once. Everything else is usually better served by a scheduled export until somebody proves otherwise.

Accounting connected for billing, not for ledgers
Calendar connected so availability reflects reality
Single sign-on for joiners, movers and leavers
Scheduled export instead of a live integration where possible

120-consultant IT service centre — real case

The CFO of a Milan firm spent 3 days/month closing the forecast. Now asks hice.ai: "December T&M revenue forecast by client". Answer in 5 seconds, exportable to Excel. 3 days → 5 minutes.

hice.ai vs traditional enterprise PSA

Feature	hice.ai	Enterprise PSA
Time-to-value	1-2 weeks	6-12 months implementation
Annual cost (50 users)	Transparent, linear	License + consulting + custom
Updates	Weekly automatic	Major release every 2 years
Interface language	Native multilingual	Often English-only
Built-in AI	Core of the product	Paid add-on module
Team adoption	High — it's a chat	Low — too many clicks

FAQ

What does Professional Services Automation mean?+

PSA is the software category integrating project management, resources, timesheets, billing and CRM for professional services firms.

Who uses a PSA?+

Consulting firms, system integrators, creative agencies, engineering studios, IT firms on T&M. Any business where the product is hours sold.

Is hice.ai a PSA or a CRM?+

Both. It's an AI-native PSA that natively includes CRM, ATS, project management and billing. One tool, one source of truth.

Can I migrate data from an existing PSA?+

Yes. We import from Salesforce, HubSpot, Workday, Microsoft Project, Excel. Typical migration in 5-10 days.

Where is my data hosted?+

Cloud SaaS with data hosted in the EU, encrypted at-rest and in-transit, GDPR-compliant, with daily backups.

Which AI models do you use?+

Latest-gen (Gemini, GPT) via proprietary gateway. The AI replies in the user's language.

Is there a mobile version?+

The interface is web-responsive: works on mobile like an app. Nothing to install.

Is there a free plan?+

Yes. HICE is free for companies up to 10 employees and 5,000 CVs, or freelancers up to 2,000 CVs, with no card required. A personalized demo is also available.