Comparison updated August 2026
Side by side
Published data on both agencies. Where one side measurably differs, the dot marks it: the higher score, the lower published rate, the larger team, the more recent review. Which of those is an advantage depends on your brief.
| Attribute | Artefact | Wavestone |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial score | Higher score: 74.8/100 | 65.8/100 |
| Hourly rate | Contact for rates | Contact for rates |
| Team size | 1000+ | 1000+ |
| Location | Paris, France | Paris, France |
| Founded | — | — |
| Last reviewed | Aug 5, 2026 | Aug 5, 2026 |
What we said about each
Our take on Artefact
The Bpifrance engagement is the one to read first. Artefact took agentic AI from experiment to scale across 500 employees at a public investment bank, and what came out of it was not one assistant but more than 1,500 individual agents built by the business teams themselves. That is a different claim from most agentic case studies, which describe a system rather than an adoption curve.
Reviewed Aug 5, 2026
Read the full assessment →Our take on Wavestone
Wavestone approaches AI from governance rather than from engineering, and for a regulated buyer that is the point rather than a limitation. The practice is built on DORA, NIS2, the EU AI Act and ISO 27001, with delivery attached to it. The published work follows: generative AI replacing manual steps in document processing at the Helvetia Group, a use-case prioritization exercise in wealth and asset management, a unified data operating model for a healthcare group built for compliance as much as…
Reviewed Aug 5, 2026
Read the full assessment →Best for
Where each agency measurably leads on the published data — team capacity, declared specializations, editorial scoring, and rates where both publish them. Use these to match an agency to your project priorities.
Choose Artefact if you need
- disclosed specialization in E-commerce / Manufacturing
- broader service offering — also covers AI Agents
- a higher overall editorial score
Choose Wavestone if you need
- disclosed specialization in Healthcare
- an overall editorial score of 65.8/100
Strengths and watch-outs
Both upsides and risks, straight from our editorial assessments.
Artefact
Strengths
- Agentic AI evidenced at adoption scale rather than pilot scale: 500 employees, then more than 1,500 agents emerging from the business itself
- Outcome figures published on the cases that carry them—two minutes for a market study, 15 points of revenue-prediction accuracy, seventy airports
- Over a hundred client pages published, so a buyer can find work in their own sector rather than accepting an analogue
Watch-outs
- 2,500 people across thirty-two offices—confirm which office delivers, who is named on the team, and how much is subcontracted
- Many of the published cases carry no numbers at all; the strong ones are strong, but the portfolio is uneven on outcomes
Wavestone
Strengths
- Publishes an average daily rate of €944, which makes budgeting possible before the first meeting
- AI delivery attached to a real regulatory practice—DORA, NIS2, the EU AI Act, ISO 27001—rather than sold beside it
- A listed consultancy of 6,000-plus people, so capacity and continuity are not the risk they are with a boutique
Watch-outs
- One named AI client (Helvetia) among several anonymized stories—ask for a reference inside your own regulatory perimeter
- The published AI work is governance, adoption and process rather than model building; check the split before scoping
Service coverage
Where the two overlap, and where each covers ground the other does not.
Industry coverage
Where the two overlap, and where each covers ground the other does not.
Frequently asked questions
- Which has more FinTech experience, Artefact or Wavestone?
- Both agencies show documented FinTech work. Artefact has the broader industry stack overall, with disclosed experience in E-commerce, Manufacturing beyond their shared focus.
- Which scores higher overall, Artefact or Wavestone?
- Artefact scores 74.8/100, 9 points higher than Wavestone at 65.8/100. Both portfolio quality and business credibility feed into the score — see our methodology for the full breakdown.
- When should I consider both Artefact and Wavestone?
- Consider running parallel discovery briefs with Artefact and Wavestone if your project spans multiple workstreams, you want competitive proposals to compare scope and approach, or you're undecided between the specialization angles each brings (see the Best for cards above). Most engagements ultimately go with one — but the parallel-brief phase is a low-cost way to validate fit.
Read the full reviews
A side-by-side is a starting point. The full assessments carry the portfolio analysis, documented engagements, and the evidence behind every strength and watch-out above.