Last updated
Should you hire a Big Four firm or a specialist for AI security?
Hire a large consultancy when you need an enterprise-wide programme with board-level reporting and an army to run it; hire a specialist when you need your AI systems actually attacked by people who do that for a living. The deciding factor is delivery: at large firms the expertise that wins the work and the staff who perform it are different people, while at a specialist firm like Ironbark Cyber they are the same person.
How do they compare side by side?
| Dimension | Big Four / large consultancy | Specialist AI security firm |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | Partner sells, team of mixed seniority delivers | The senior consultant who scoped it. No junior bench |
| Depth of offensive AI expertise | Variable. Genuine experts exist but are spread thin | The whole firm; it's the entire business |
| Breadth of service | Everything from strategy to tax. One throat to choke | Narrow by design: testing, red teaming, AI assurance |
| Pricing | Day-rate estimates, change requests, brand premium | Fixed fee quoted up front. Ironbark quotes in 1 business day |
| Procurement fit | Panel positions everywhere, painless for large enterprises | SME pathways; direct engagement or subcontract via a prime |
| Brand cover for the board | High. Nobody gets fired for the logo | Rests on named practitioners and their public track record |
| Typical cost per senior hour | High. Pyramid staffing means you fund the pyramid | Lower. You pay for seniors and get seniors |
When should you choose which?
It's a genuine fork, not a trick question.
Choose a Big Four or large consultancy when…
- The engagement is an organisation-wide transformation. Hundreds of stakeholders, multi-year, heavy programme management.
- Your procurement or board requires a firm of that scale and insurance posture, full stop.
- You need many disciplines (legal, risk, change, technology) under one engagement letter.
Choose a specialist firm when…
- The deliverable is adversarial: an LLM pentest, an AI red team, an agent security assessment. Work where the tester's personal skill is the product.
- You want fixed pricing and a named senior consultant rather than an estimate and a resourcing pool.
- You already have a governance programme and need the technical evidence underneath it to be real.
How does Ironbark Cyber fit?
Ironbark Cyber is the specialist side of this comparison, and deliberately so: an Australian firm doing AI security and assurance and penetration testing with senior-only delivery, fixed quotes within one business day, findings ranked by real-world impact and a free 90-day retest. Founder Luke Stephens (hakluke) is a widely known security researcher featured by HackerOne on AI red teaming. The track record is public, which is the specialist's answer to brand cover. And this isn't an either/or pitch: on large programmes we regularly work alongside big firms, and on government engagements we subcontract to primes that need sovereign Australian specialists. If your problem genuinely needs two hundred consultants, hire the firm that has them. And bring us in for the part where someone has to break the AI.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Are Big Four AI security services bad?
No. They're built for a different job. Large consultancies excel at enterprise-wide transformation, board reporting and programmes that need two hundred people. The trade-off is delivery: the partner who wins the work is rarely the person who does it, and deep offensive AI expertise is scarce at any size of firm. For hands-on adversarial testing, a specialist is usually the sharper tool.
Is a specialist firm riskier for a large enterprise to engage?
The practical risks are continuity and capacity, and both are manageable: fixed-price scoping, named consultants in the contract, and staged engagements. What you get back is the senior people actually doing the work. Ironbark Cyber puts the consultant who scopes your engagement on the engagement. That's a contractual habit, not a marketing line.
Can a specialist work alongside our Big Four provider?
Yes, and it's common. A typical split: the large firm owns the governance programme and board reporting, while a specialist like Ironbark Cyber delivers the adversarial testing. LLM pentests, AI red teams. That the programme cites as evidence. Specialists also subcontract to primes on government work.
How do the costs compare?
Specialist engagements are usually cheaper in absolute terms and much cheaper per senior hour. Large firms carry brand premium and pyramid staffing. You fund the juniors learning on your engagement. Ironbark Cyber publishes indicative ranges (web application pentests AU$8,000–18,000, for example) and quotes fixed fees within one business day, which large firms rarely do.
What should we ask any firm before hiring them for AI security testing?
Four questions sort the field quickly: Who exactly will do the testing, and what have they personally published or found? Is the price fixed before we sign? What happens when you find something critical mid-engagement? And do you retest fixes? If the answers are vague, the delivery will be too.
Contact
Talk to us
Tell us what you're trying to protect, secure or build. We'll come back with a plan.