Common questions

The readiness assessment, custom automation and AI builds, integration work between the systems you already run, AI policy drafting, and team training. Support after a build is a monthly arrangement. Most clients start with the assessment because it decides what the rest should be.

Time with the people who do the work and access to the systems involved. We map where the hours go, then you get a findings document and an implementation plan with every item priced. Most of the effort is ours; yours is a few conversations and a login.

We draft it, you approve it. The draft maps to how regulators and auditors actually examine AI use: an inventory of which tools staff may use with which data classes, vendor vetting criteria including training-data and retention terms, data retention schedules, and named accountability for every decision AI feeds into. Where a framework applies to you, HIPAA, SOC 2, state privacy law, the policy is written to slot into your existing compliance program rather than sit beside it. Your leadership or counsel makes it final. We draft the policy; we do not replace your judgment or your lawyer.

Least privilege by default: we request the narrowest access the work requires, scoped to the systems in the plan, and nothing more. All work happens under named, individually attributable accounts, never shared logins, so your audit trail shows exactly who did what and when. Credentials never appear in code or config; they live in a managed secrets vault and every credential we touched is rotated at handoff. Offboarding is a deliverable, not a hope: when the engagement ends you receive written confirmation that our access is revoked, itemized by system, suitable for your own access review records.

It stays in your accounts, under your controls, for the entire engagement. We do not copy it into our systems, sell it, or use it to train models. Anything AI processes during a build runs under provider terms that prohibit training on your data, and the plan names each provider so your team can verify the terms themselves. Everything we build logs what each automated decision was based on, so when an auditor asks why the system did something, the answer is on record. When the engagement ends, our access ends, confirmed in writing.

Yes. A session covers what current tools do well, where they fail, and what to ask a vendor before you sign anything. It is priced on its own and requires no other engagement. If your team leaves able to spot the difference between a real use case and a sales pitch, the session did its job.

The assessment is a fixed rate. Build work is quoted per item in the plan, so you can approve some pieces and skip others. Ongoing support, if you want it, is monthly. Nothing is billed by surprise.

No. Any hosting or service accounts a build needs are laid out in the plan first, what they are, what they cost to run, and what the alternatives are, and nothing gets created until you approve it. Once a build is paid for, everything transfers to your name at handoff. If you end ongoing support later, the systems are already yours; nothing stops working.

Almost never. Most of the waste we find is between systems, not inside them, the same figures typed into three places that do not talk. Integration work connects what you already have. Replacement only enters the plan when a system is the problem, and it shows up as a priced item you can decline.

If you started a business to cook, build, design, or fix things and now spend your week on invoices, spreadsheets, and chasing paperwork, you are exactly the right size. The point of this work is to hand the admin to software so your hours go back to the thing you actually opened the doors to do.

How long the assessment runs depends on how many systems and people are involved; we agree a firm timeline with you before it starts. Build timelines are quoted per item in the plan, so you see duration alongside price before approving anything.

Then the plan says so and you have spent a fixed fee to learn your operation is already tight. That outcome is rare but real, and we would rather tell you than invent work. The findings document is still yours to keep.