Fractional Chief AI Officer
AI deployed where it pays, on the systems you already run.
We train your whole team on practical AI use, repair the data underneath, and build on the one process that carries the most return. Every engagement opens with a paid diagnostic, so scope is set from what we find rather than from a guess.
Use Cases
12 identified- 01AP automationHigh
- 02Close summaryHigh
- 03AR follow-upHigh
- 04Contract intakeMed
- 05Payroll flagsMed
Priority Matrix
Impact vs. Effort
Active Sprint
- AP automationBuilding
- Close summaryLive
- AR follow-upLive
Time Reclaimed · Avg.
32 hrs/mo
across active workflows
- Who it is for
- Owner-led businesses, roughly $2M to $50M
- How it starts
- $2,000 diagnostic, four to six weeks
- First build
- One process, measured before and after
- Terms
- Month to month, 30 days notice
When this matters
Most businesses your size do not have an AI problem. They have a systems problem that AI makes obvious.
When the accounting system and the operational tools do not talk to each other, the owner becomes the integration layer. Work gets rekeyed, approvals route through one person, and the same report gets rebuilt by hand every month. No amount of AI tooling fixes that, which is why so many pilots stall right after the demo.
The opportunity for a business between $2M and $50M is rarely a new platform. It is the repeatable, high-frequency work already moving through the tools you own: quoting, intake, invoicing, scheduling, follow-up, and reporting. Those are the use cases that pay back fastest, and they are the ones a vendor demo will never point you toward.
Company Vitals brings a finance-grade lens to that work. We care that what gets deployed produces trustworthy output against real data, and that the return shows up in hours, error rate, and dollars you can point at.
Who this is for
Where this fits
Strong fit when:
- Roughly $2M to $50M in revenue, with a team running repeatable work every day
- You already run an accounting system or ERP, so there is a system of record to work from
- High-frequency processes: quoting, intake, invoicing, scheduling, AP, follow-up, reporting
- Growth is gated by systems that do not connect, and you are doing the integrating by hand
- Your team is already using AI informally, with no standards for what data can go into it
- Construction, ecommerce, healthcare, and professional services, where we work most often
What's included
What the engagement does
How engagements start
Every engagement opens with a paid diagnostic, not a free proposal.
Systems & AI Opportunity Diagnostic
$2,000
Four to six weeks. A standalone deliverable.
- Review of the systems, data flow, and reporting you run today, and where the breaks actually are
- Ranked list of AI opportunities, ordered by return and by how quickly each one can be proven
- Readiness assessment: what has to be fixed in the data before anything gets automated
- Opening strategy and a company training plan
- Recommended scope and service level for the ongoing engagement
Four to six weeks inside your systems is enough to trace how work actually moves through the business, where the data breaks, and which process will return the most. That is not something anyone can guess accurately on a discovery call.
The output is a ranked deployment plan, not a sales document. Scope and service level for the ongoing engagement are set from what the diagnostic finds, so the monthly fee is matched to real work instead of an estimate made before anyone looked.
The diagnostic is priced as its own deliverable and is not credited against the monthly fee. The ranked opportunity list is yours to keep and act on whether or not we continue together.
Engagement terms
Ongoing work is a long-term partnership, not a fixed-length project, and it runs month to month. Either party can end the engagement with 30 days notice. Retention is earned on results, not on contract length.
After the diagnostic
Three service levels, scoped from what we find.
Ongoing engagements are monthly. We publish the diagnostic price because it is fixed. Monthly investment depends on how many builds you want running at once and what the data underneath needs, so we quote it in the diagnostic rather than posting a number that would be wrong for most businesses.
Level 1
Strategy & training
Teams that need capability and direction before anything gets deployed.
- AI roadmap tied to business priorities
- Company-wide and role-specific training
- Usage standards and governance
- Quarterly reassessment and roadmap refresh
Level 2
Strategy, training & one build at a time
The most common starting point. We work the ranked list in order, one build at a time, and move to the next one as soon as the current one is live.
One at a time does not mean one total. We build as fast as the process allows, so some finish inside a month and others run several, and the moment one is deployed we start the next one on the ranked list.
- Everything in Level 1
- Higher-frequency training cadence
- One custom AI build in flight at a time, taken end to end on a full process
- The data, handoffs, and integrations that process depends on, fixed as part of the build
- A baseline recorded before each build and re-measured after, so the return is a number
- The next build starts immediately once the current one is deployed
Level 3
Full agent deployment
Same work, run in parallel. For businesses that want several processes moving at once rather than one after another.
- Everything in Level 2
- Multiple builds in flight at the same time, in priority order
- Custom agents for executive reporting and decision support
- Ongoing ROI reporting and continuous retraining as processes change
Most clients land on Level 2 or Level 3. Strategy without implementation does not change how a business runs, and the return is easiest to defend once one process is measurably better.
How the work sequences
Diagnostic first, then builds in priority order.
Capability lives in your team rather than in one consultant, so training runs alongside the builds from the beginning. Build length scales with process complexity, and the next one starts as soon as the current one is deployed.
Diagnostic
- Systems, data flow, and reporting reviewed
- AI opportunities ranked by return
- Readiness gaps documented
- Training plan and recommended scope
First build
- Baseline recorded on the target process
- Data and handoffs fixed for that lane
- One deployment built end to end
- Team trained on the workflow it touches
Prove and widen
- Before-and-after number on process one
- Adoption measured, not assumed
- Next build in priority order
- Roadmap refreshed against results
Timelines are representative. Exact sequencing adjusted for your starting point.
What we measure
Four numbers you can hold us to.
Return on investment
Every deployment is measured against what the process cost before it was built: hours, error rate, cycle time, and dollars where the process touches them.
Labor efficiency
How much capacity comes back to the team, and what that capacity gets redirected to. Recovered hours that nobody reassigns quietly disappear.
Team adoption
Adoption is measured, not assumed: who is actually using what was built, at what level of confidence, and where the training has not landed yet.
Future proofing
Whether the systems and data underneath can carry the next build. This is what keeps the second and third deployments from costing as much as the first.
Where this is not the right fit
We would rather tell you early.
- Pre-revenue companies, or businesses with no established system of record
- Buyers looking for a one-time tool purchase rather than a change in how the business runs
- Organizations without an executive sponsor willing to change process
If the timing is not right
Start somewhere smaller.
- Systems to Scale cohort
Smaller than this, or want to build it yourself? Six weeks, one workflow fixed, $2,500 per seat.
- AI Readiness Checklist
29 yes or no questions with an instant readiness score. Free, and it takes about five minutes.
- Fractional CFO
When the numbers themselves are the constraint, finance leadership comes before any AI build.
- QuickBooks file cleanup
When the books are the broken data source, this is the cheapest way to fix the input first.
Our process
From discovery to delivery
A simple, four-step path designed to minimize disruption.
Discovery call
About 30 minutes on how the business runs today, where the manual work sits, and what you already own.
Paid diagnostic
Four to six weeks inside the systems, tracing how work moves and where the data breaks.
Ranked plan
Opportunities ordered by return, a readiness assessment, and a recommended scope and service level.
First build
We record the baseline, deploy on the highest-return process, and train the team that uses it.
FAQ
Common questions
Get Started Today
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Book a free, no-pressure discovery call. You will speak directly with a member of our leadership team, not a salesperson.