Your Virtual AI CIO.
One dedicated AI person who owns your company's AI strategy, adoption and measurable results. Fractional executive leadership, without the $200k hire.
Instead of buying more AI tools, you get the dedicated AI person for your business: the executive who decides what AI to adopt, makes sure it actually works, and proves it in numbers.
Four pillars. One accountable person.
Not a retainer for 'support.' A defined operating role with deliverables you can inspect every month.
Strategy + portfolio
Your AI roadmap, prioritized by ROI and risk.
- Opportunity audits per workflow
- Build vs buy vs skip decisions
- Quarterly roadmap review
Governance + vendor oversight
AI you can defend to a customer, an insurer or a board.
- Data access and privacy rules
- Vendor evaluation and contracts
- Human-approval policies
Delivery + adoption
Workflows that ship and stick.
- Production builds with fallbacks
- Team training and runbooks
- Least-complex reliable solutions
Measurement cadence
Every engagement on one scorecard.
- Baseline before, KPI after
- Monthly review, quarterly deep dive
- Kill or scale decisions on data
This is what you're actually buying.
Every month runs on the same rhythm, so leadership receives decisions, not activity theater.
Measure
Monthly KPI scorecard review. What moved, what didn't, and why. Decision for each active workflow: scale, fix or kill.
Build
Delivery on the quarter's priority workflow. Tests, human approvals and fallbacks before anything touches production.
Adopt
Team training, runbook updates and shadowing. A workflow only counts as shipped when your team runs it without me.
Plan
Portfolio review: next opportunities ranked by ROI, vendor check-ins and governance housekeeping.
Visibility before backlog.
The partnership starts by establishing what's already in use, what's at risk and what's worth doing next.
Listen + inventory
Leadership priorities, existing tools, active AI uses, owners and material concerns.
Map + classify
Opportunity portfolio, data classes, vendor dependencies and decision thresholds.
Decide + sequence
Approve, revise or stop decisions; a 90-day roadmap and measurement plan.
Install cadence
Monthly scorecard, office hours, governance review and a quarterly planning rhythm.
Every owner does this math. Here it is, honestly.
| Full-time AI hire | Virtual AI CIO | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $150k–$220k+ salary, benefits and recruiting | $36k–$90k a year. No recruiting, no benefits |
| Time to start | 3–6 months to recruit and onboard | Starts after a 14-day Sprint |
| Experience | One person's background | 20 years of enterprise IT plus live AI agent operations |
| Accountability | Salary paid regardless of outcomes | Measured on one KPI per workflow, every month |
| Commitment | Hard to unwind | Cancel with notice after the agreed term |
Priced by scope, not by the hour.
One active workflow lane
- Monthly scorecard + decision review
- One workflow in build or optimization at a time
- AI inventory, decision log and usage policy maintained
- Office hours for your team
Multiple lanes + leadership reporting
- Parallel workflow lanes across teams
- Vendor evaluation, contracts and coordination
- Quarterly leadership or board briefing
- Training program and adoption tracking
Who it's for, and who it isn't.
Built for
- Owner-led service businesses, roughly $500k–$10M in revenue
- Teams of 5–50 where the owner still touches operations
- Businesses losing leads to missed calls, slow replies or manual follow-up
- Owners who want AI leverage without becoming AI experts
Not a fit
- Teams shopping for the cheapest tool
- Businesses unwilling to grant workflow access
- Anyone wanting a chatbot by Friday with no process behind it
- Companies that need full-time, on-site presence
The CIO is earned, not sold.
The low-risk ladder stays. Every partnership starts with a sprint that has already proven value on one workflow.
Straight answers.
How is this different from hiring an AI lead?
Cost, speed and accountability. A full-time hire runs $150k–$220k+ with benefits and takes 3–6 months to recruit. The Virtual AI CIO starts after a 14-day Sprint, costs $36k–$90k a year and is measured on one KPI per workflow, every month.
Do you replace my IT provider or MSP?
No. I work alongside them. They keep infrastructure and security running; I own AI strategy, adoption and measurement, and coordinate with them on access and vendors.
Why must I do a Sprint first?
Because you should never buy the big thing from someone who hasn't delivered the small thing. The Sprint proves we work well together and gives the partnership a measured starting point.
What tools and vendors do you work with?
Whatever fits your business and your existing stack. I'm vendor-neutral, I don't take referral fees, and I'll often recommend fewer tools, not more.
Who owns the work?
You do. The AI inventory, decision log, workflow maps, runbooks, scorecards, vendor evaluations and roadmap all stay with you if we stop working together.
What's the commitment?
Month to month after an initial term we agree up front, with notice to cancel. If the scorecard stops justifying the fee, we both should know it.
What happens after the first 60 days?
The first workflow moves to monitoring, the next priority from the portfolio starts, and governance, training and reporting continue on the monthly cadence.