Questions, answered plainly
Plain answers on cost, speed, who's accountable when AI gets it wrong, data, lock-in, and what you keep after the engagement.
What buyers ask us before they start, and what we tell them. If yours isn't here, ask us in a working session.
Why us, and why not another route
Why not do this in-house?
You can, and we'll leave your team able to. We make the path shorter because we've done this before and we bring the governance infrastructure. The same team stays with you from the first session to production.
Why not a company-brain platform?
A platform asks you to trust the machine. We start from your own experts and cite where every answer comes from, with an accountable person behind every decision that matters.
Why not a consultancy?
A consultancy bills weeks of analysis and leaves you a deck. You get something usable in the first working session, and that session is credited in full against your engagement.
Are we too small for this?
No. We work with solo founders as well as large teams.
Which service is right for us?
It depends on where you are today. If you have the tools but the work hasn't changed, even if people use them daily, start with AI-absent → AI-enabled. If your first critical workflow already runs on agents but most work still waits to be asked, start with AI-enabled → AI-native. If you need AI leadership on your team first, look at fractional leadership. If you're not sure, the working session will tell you which fits.
Why a fractional seat instead of a full-time hire?
You get executive ownership of AI without a full-time hire. The seat answers for outcomes we agree with you each quarter, and when you're ready to hire for the role, we can write its mandate.
Getting started
What is a working session?
One focused day with us. We dig into how your work runs and pick one real workflow together. You leave with a working prototype of that workflow and a view of where you are on the path. For each part of the workflow you also get a build, buy or partner call and who is accountable for each decision, plus our advice on where to go next.
How much of my team's time does it take?
One focused day. We'll tell you beforehand who should be in the room.
What does it cost?
Talk to us. We scope the work with you during the working session, which is credited in full against your engagement. Prices are set in the working session.
What if we don't go ahead after the session?
You keep the working prototype and our advice on where to go next, and you owe nothing more. The session fee covers the session itself.
How fast will we see something?
You get something usable from the first session. Once we've seen your workflow there, we tell you how long it will take to reach production.
Does the fund or the company engage you?
Either can. Usually each company books its own working session, so it starts where that company is. If the fund wants to cover sessions across its portfolio, we agree those terms with the fund.
What if we find something new mid-engagement?
If the agreed workflow needs it to work, it goes into the plan. We don't turn every discovery into a change order. Genuinely new work gets scoped with you, in the open.
Accountability and safety
Who's accountable when the AI gets it wrong?
A person on your side. There's an accountable person behind every decision that matters, and agents can handle some approvals that person has permissioned. Before anything runs, we agree who is accountable and what each agent may approve.
Is our data safe?
Your data stays in the systems you already use. We work inside them, with only the access you give us, under NDA. We design each engagement around your compliance requirements.
What if it doesn't work?
We commit to what we control: delivering what we agreed, on the schedule we agreed. We don't promise outcomes we don't control, and we tell you early if a workflow isn't working.
Cost and value
Won't this just raise our AI bill?
It shouldn't. Any vendor can raise your usage. We design for value that grows faster than your AI bill.
After the engagement
Do we have to keep paying you?
No. You can have us keep running it, which is the easier option, but it's portable by design: you can take it in-house at any time without rebuilding.
What if we want to leave, or run it ourselves?
You can. We build it so you can own it, and we operate it for as long as that's useful. By default we run the system and your brain for you as a managed service, and you can take it over whenever you like. Self-hosted is available, so you can run it yourself with your own agents plugged in.
Can we use our own agents?
Yes. No vendor lock-in: bring your own agents or use ours, and swap them whenever you want.
What do we keep when the engagement ends?
The ability to run it yourself. Your team knows how to manage what we installed and can keep improving it without us.
Still deciding?
The quickest way to answer the rest is one focused day on one of your real workflows.
Credited in full against your engagement.