• Diageo has scrapped its guidance due to uncertainty over Trump's tariffs on imports.
• Shares fell despite a return to sales growth.
• Tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports could affect Diageo's momentum in North America, its CEO said.

Diageo has scrapped its medium-term sales guidance, blaming macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump's tariff threats.

Shares in the Smirnoff and Guinness owner fell as much as 4% in London on Tuesday, bringing the decline over the past 12 months to almost 23%.

The dip came despite a return to growth for organic sales, which rose 1% to $10.9 billion in the six months to December 31. Four years ago Diageo set a target for organic net sales growth of 5% to 7% annually.

CEO Debra Crew said Trump's threat of 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico over the weekend — which have since been paused for a month — could impact Diageo's momentum in North America. That growth has been driven by Canadian whisky brand Crown Royal and Mexican premium tequila Don Julio.

"We are taking a number of actions to mitigate the impact and disruption to our business that tariffs may cause, and we will also continue to engage with the US administration on the broader impact that this will have on everyone supporting the US hospitality industry, including consumers, employees, distributors, restaurants, bars and other retail outlets," Crew said.

Analysts at UBS wrote in a note that better-than-expected growth in tequila was more than offset by weakness elsewhere, and also highlighted the potential negative impact of tariffs on sales.

Operating profit was $3.15 billion, lower than the $3.31 billion for the first half of 2024.

Guinness delivered double-digit growth of 17% for an eighth consecutive half-year, and Diageo said it had doubled investment in Guinness 0.0 to expand capacity to meet rising demand.

• While on a 10-day international vacation, I dropped my phone into the ocean.
• Losing access to my device was inconvenient and stressful. Ideally, unplugging would be planned.
• I'll take steps to plan better for future trips in case I lose my phone again.

"I haven't heard from Brittany in a couple of days." My best friend, Jasmine, frantically reached out to my sister, Ashlie, after trying and failing to get a response from me every way she knew how, from Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and even email after my location hadn't updated from the Atlantic Ocean for days while I was on vacation.

Here's how the nightmare started: After days of ritzy beach clubs and soaking up the vibrant warmth and wealth of culture in Cannes, the perfect boat day on my 10-day South of France itinerary had finally arrived.

Our group of five settled onto the bow of our chartered yacht, seated with Champagne and snacks off to explore the fabulous French Riviera. Yet, we were met with choppy waters minutes after leaving the dock. Immediate unease seized us all as waves crashed onto the boat, followed seconds later by the captain pounding on the glass, urging us to return to the back of the boat. We scrambled to the back one by one, the walkway slippery as the boat rocked.

As the waves became more fervent, I reached out to hold the railing and watched as my phone hit the water in the sudden upheaval and immediately disappeared into the depths.

I had to figure out what to do while far from home without my phone

For a moment, I stood frozen, eyes glued to the spot where the phone had vanished, thinking, "This did not just happen!" Then, I quickly snapped to reality as the intense waves continued to thrash our boat.

Recounting the details of the now-long-gone phone initially dampened the mood, but as the storm passed, so did the worry. Surrounded by massive yachts, crystal blue waters, and bright sunshine, the energy returned to the boat, and our crew continued on.

For many, that moment would have been the perfect excuse to free themselves from the chains of the device that traps most of us from the moment we rise to the second we close our eyes in a never-ending cycle.

But losing my phone in the middle of a 10-day trip plunged my dream vacation into chaos. It made me rethink phone safety and the steps I wish I had taken before boarding the flight to Nice to minimize travel disruption.

Two-factor authentication made things tricky

I was able to use my friend's phones to contact my family, but I still lost access to a number of essential contact points. I organized the trip, so it was especially inconvenient, as I was now unable to use my phone to connect with Airbnb hosts for check-in; I had no access to WhatsApp or to my Gmail account to confirm reservations.

In the age of two-factor authentication, logging into your account from a new device, even a friend's phone, is nearly impossible without having a way to verify your identity through a second trusted device. Multiple times, I received messages like, "A code will be sent to your phone to verify your identity," which immediately shut me out of various apps. Traveling with a trusted second device, ranging from an iPad, smartwatch, or laptop, would have ensured I was able to regain access to those critical applications.

Additionally, as the content creator of the group, I lost the ability to capture key moments to later repackage for social media and a growing travel blog. I can't tell you how many times I had to ask a friend, "Can I use your phone for a photo?" While everyone was very gracious, I couldn't help but feel like a burden.

It wasn't relaxing to 'unplug' because I didn't plan for it

Returning home and recounting the story, the immediate reaction was always, "Well, wasn't it nice not to be glued to your phone and unplug during the trip?"

Honestly? No.

We've romanticized the idea of unplugging, but when it happens unexpectedly, you lose access to many of the conveniences a phone provides, including the ability to make calls, take photos, or use a search engine, maps, and so much more.

Unplugging is a choice that, ideally, you want to plan for so that if anything goes awry, you still have access to your device. For me, losing my phone meant losing access and autonomy and the loss of income through content creation. While it wasn't the end of the world, it was a wake-up call to always be prepared for the unthinkable.

• Perceptis has raised $3.6 million to automate tedious consulting tasks with generative AI.
• The startup was founded by a former McKinsey consultant and former Apple engineer.
• The cofounders said AI could lead to a lot of growth for small- and midsize consultancies.

Consulting has long relied on manpower, but a new generative AI startup co-founded by a former McKinsey consultant says its software can take over some of the industry's most tedious tasks.

"A lot of the internal processes are extremely manual labor heavy," Alibek Dostiyarov, cofounder and CEO of Perceptis, told Business Insider of consulting workflows, which he said "lend themselves almost perfectly to what GenAI is capable of doing."

He co-founded Perceptis with CTO Yersultan Sapar, a former engineer at Apple, to help consulting and professional services firms automate monotonous tasks, freeing up people at those firms to serve more clients and focus on solving their problems.

"Perceptis is an operating system for the consultants designed to help them win more business and make consulting — their day job — even more enjoyable and focused on the core of their service," Sapar said.

Perceptis has raised $3.6 million in funding led by Streamlined Ventures, along with The House Fund, Tekton Ventures, FEBE Ventures, MOST Ventures, and Silkroad Innovation Hub. They've also gained some prominent angel investors, including Charlie Songhurst, a member of Meta's board of directors and former Microsoft executive; AJ Shankar, founder and CEO of Everlaw, and Peter Kazanjy, author of "Founding Sales" and co-founder of Atrium.

Advancements in generative AI have disrupted the broader consulting industry, with major firms making huge investments in the technology and establishing dedicated AI units, such as McKinsey's QuantumBlack. A senior partner at McKinsey told BI last year that he thinks AI is "going to be most of what we do in the future."

How AI helps consultants land jobs

Perceptis is currently focused on the business development side of consulting, or helping firms secure jobs. The AI can do industry research for companies that Perceptis clients are interested in, identify what opportunities there are, and match that up with the clients' specific skills and backgrounds. It then creates a detailed, custom proposal that the client can use to try and secure a job.

Dostiyarov said an average proposal, meaning the work put in before the consulting firm is even hired for a job, can take 20 hours of work or more, adding that with AI it can take a fraction of the time.

Dostiyarov used an analogy for their message to clients: "We are going to find the house on fire for you, and then we are going to help you show up as the perfect firefighter for the job by giving you the perfect proposal."

"Because of all the data and all the capabilities that we have with our AI, we now can tell a perfect story as to why you are the great company to solve this problem," he said.

The co-founders said Perceptis clients are often able to double or triple the number of proposals they send each month and experience higher conversation rates as well as increases in revenue soon after getting started with the program.

Perceptis primarily serves small- to medium-sized firms, which typically don't have the same manpower as the biggest firms nor do they build their own internal AI tools.

The startup saw its biggest growth yet in November and December, doubling its annual recurring revenue, the cofounders said.

AI can't replace human consultants

The Perceptis co-founders said they see AI as supplementing human consultants, not replacing them, and that the technology still has its limitations. They said AI can't replace human judgement, at least for now, or the human-to-human interaction that is needed in consulting.

But they think it could make the industry overall a lot more productive. AI could also potentially help smaller consultancies and even independent consultants compete more seriously in the space by taking over the tedious but necessary work that the bigger firms have more than enough employees to handle.

"Perceptis therefore democratizes access to consulting as an industry," Dostiyarov said.

As a result, they said the consulting industry could become a lot larger, more fragmented, and more specialized — and that the MBBs and Big Fours of the world could become a bit less dominant.

"There are, of course, the goliaths in the industry. We don't think that they're going to go away," Dostiyarov said. "Still, we think that the majority of the growth is actually going to come from these much smaller firms."

Do you work in consulting and have insights to share about the industry? Contact this reporter at [email protected]or via the encrypted messaging app Signal at kelseyv.21.