AI Consulting — senior judgment, no slide decks.
Strategy workshops, AI opportunity audits, architecture reviews and fractional CTO advisory — delivered by the same senior engineers who've shipped over 500 production AI systems. We help you decide what to build, what to buy, and what to walk away from.
- Senior engineers — not junior consultants reading playbooks
- Written deliverables on every engagement
- Vendor-neutral — we've told clients not to hire us
- Most consulting clients move to a build engagement within 6 months
$320k saved
by NOT building the wrong AI system · $12k workshop, 2 days, 9-page written report
“We were 6 weeks from signing the wrong check. Paisol's workshop cost us $12k and saved us $320k — and the only reason I called them was a friend's offhand advice to ‘get a second opinion.’ This is the engagement I wish we'd done first instead of fourth.”
Underwriting Director
Northwood Insurance
Most AI consulting in 2026 is two slides and a recommendation to "hire us to build it." That's not advice — that's a sales pitch. Real AI consulting is the time, judgment, and written deliverables of a senior person who has shipped enough production systems to know which bets pay off and which ones don't.
We sell consulting because clients keep asking for it — not because it's our highest-margin service. About 60% of consulting engagements convert to a fixed-price AI agent build, a machine learning project, or a web platform with AI features. The other 40% take our written roadmap and run it themselves or with another team — and that's fine. Vendor-neutral advice is the only kind worth paying for.
Not sure if you need consulting at all? Start with our free AI Opportunity Audit — a personalized 1-page report delivered in 24 hours. If after reading it you still want to talk strategy, book a free 30-minute call.
Is AI consulting right for you?
A blunt check before you book a call.
This is for you if…
- You don't know what to build yet — or whether AI is even the right path
- You have a vendor proposal you don't fully trust
- Leadership is split on whether AI fits your business
- You have an internal AI team but no senior leader / architect
- You're about to spend > $200k on something with murky success criteria
This is NOT for you if…
- Scope is already locked and you just need execution → hire a developer
- You expect to spend < $5k for consulting (use our free AI Audit instead)
- You want product-marketing slides, not engineering judgment
- You want someone to tell you what you already want to hear
Four engagement formats
Pick the one that matches your decision pressure. Each ends with a written deliverable you fully own.
Strategy workshop
2-day intensive. We map your business, identify the 3 highest-ROI AI use-cases, and produce a 90-day implementation roadmap. Best for: leadership teams that know AI matters but don't know where to start.
AI opportunity audit
A written report identifying where AI fits in your business, what each use-case is worth, and what to build first. Best for: companies wanting an outside perspective before they invest. Delivered in 2 weeks.
Architecture review
Independent technical review of an AI system, vendor proposal, or internal team's roadmap. We read everything, talk to your team, and produce a written findings report with prioritized recommendations.
Fractional CTO advisory
15–20 hours per week of embedded senior AI leadership. Architecture decisions, hiring panels, code reviews, vendor selection, board reporting. Best for: companies building an in-house AI team without yet having a senior leader.
What we actually do in a consulting engagement
Concrete deliverables, not vague ‘digital transformation’ promises.
Strategy frameworks
- AI Opportunity Mapping
- Build-vs-Buy Decision Matrix
- RAG-vs-Fine-tune Selector
- Risk & Guardrail Audit
- TCO Modeling
Architecture reviews
- LLM evaluation systems
- RAG architectures
- Multi-agent orchestration
- Inference cost optimization
- Compliance architectures
Vendor / proposal review
- SoW analysis
- Pricing & timeline pressure tests
- Hidden-cost identification
- Reference checking
- Contract redlines
Team enablement
- Hiring panels & rubrics
- Onboarding playbooks
- Code review standards
- Eval set design
- Observability playbooks
The boring stuff, done right
Compliance, IP, contracts — the parts most agencies hand-wave.
SOC 2 architectures
Audit-ready by Day 90
HIPAA-aware builds
BAA-eligible cloud regions
GDPR + PIPEDA
EU + Canadian data residency
You own the code
IP transfer Day 1
Fixed-price contracts
Quoted in 48 hours
90-day warranty
Bugs fixed free post-launch
Pricing — three formats, no hourly games
Workshop is fixed-price. Retainers are flat monthly. No surprises.
Strategy Workshop
2-day intensive. Roadmap delivered the following week.
- Pre-workshop discovery (60 min)
- 2-day on-site or remote intensive
- Top-3 AI use-case identification
- 90-day implementation roadmap
- Written executive summary
- 30-day Slack follow-up access
Advisory Retainer
4–10 hours per week of senior AI advisory time.
- Weekly 1:1 with principal engineer
- Architecture & code reviews
- Vendor proposal pressure tests
- Hiring panel support
- Monthly written status & roadmap
- Slack channel + async access
Fractional CTO
Embedded senior AI leadership. 15–20 hrs/week.
- Everything in Advisory Retainer
- Architecture decision authority
- Hiring panels + offer support
- Board / investor reporting
- Internal team mentorship
- On-call for major decisions
Available in 8 countries, 22+ cities
View all locations →Frequently asked questions
The questions we get on every first call — answered.
- AI consulting is advice — strategy, audits, architecture reviews, fractional CTO time. No code is shipped. AI development is when we build the agent, the RAG system, or the model. Most clients start with a consulting engagement to scope what to build, then move to a build engagement once the scope is locked.
- Hire a consultant when you don't know what to build, when leadership is divided on whether AI is even the right path, when you need an unbiased architecture review on a vendor's proposal, or when you have an internal team and need senior judgment but not bodies. Hire a development team once the scope, budget, and success metrics are locked.
- Three formats, three price points: Strategy workshops $5k–$15k (2-day intensives), Monthly advisory retainer $8k–$25k/mo (4–10 hours per week of senior time), Fractional CTO $18k–$40k/mo (15–20 hours per week with embedded team leadership).
- Yes — every consulting engagement ends with a written deliverable. Workshops produce a one-page strategy and a 90-day roadmap. Audits produce a written findings report with prioritized recommendations. Retainers produce written meeting notes, architecture diagrams, and quarterly summary reports.
- Our principal engineers and founder — people with 5+ years shipping production AI systems and 500+ deployments behind them. Not junior consultants reading slide decks. Every engagement starts with the most relevant senior person on our team — never a sales handoff.
- Yes — independent vendor proposal reviews are one of our most-requested engagements. We'll read their statement of work, architecture, pricing, and timeline, and give you a written second opinion within 5 business days. Typical fee: $4,500. We've saved clients millions by spotting overscoped or under-architected proposals before they got signed.
- Yes. Mutual NDA on first call. Engagement letter signed via DocuSign before any work begins. Standard terms: monthly billing in arrears, 30-day notice, all IP transfers on payment.
- Yes — and most engagements do. We design consulting deliverables so they're directly usable as the scope document for a fixed-price AI agent build. About 60% of consulting clients convert to a build engagement within 6 months.
Need senior AI judgment — not slide decks?
30 minutes. Free. Tell us your situation. We'll tell you honestly which engagement format fits — or that you don't need one at all.
Book My Strategy Call