Your AI decisions, weighed with Brian as they come up.
Your company will keep making AI decisions long after the initial strategy is written.
Brian provides independent judgment before those commitments are made. He helps you evaluate what deserves investment, what needs further examination, and what should remain unchanged.
Explore an Advisory RelationshipBuilt on your AI assessment · Advisory only, your team does the building · Six-month minimum, billed monthly
The expensive AI mistakes are the ones that seemed reasonable at the time.
A vendor presents a convincing proposal. Someone on your team wants a new AI tool. A pilot looks promising, but nobody has established what success should look like.
Each decision may seem reasonable on its own. Together, they can commit your business to unnecessary spending, conflicting priorities, and risks nobody intended to create.
Brian examines those decisions before the company commits its money, people, or reputation.
Built for owners who keep making AI decisions after the plan is set.
Owners and leaders of established companies doing $1M to $10M in annual revenue, typically 5 to 30 employees, who already know where AI belongs in their business and want an experienced, independent voice on each decision that follows.
Best Fit
- An established business with real revenue and a reputation worth protecting.
- More AI proposals and tool requests are reaching your desk than you can weigh well on your own.
- You want someone who knows your company to tell you plainly what he would do before you sign anything.
- You intend to keep the final say on every decision and want a written record of how each one was made.
Not the Right Fit
- Businesses with no revenue yet, or ones that have just started.
- Companies that mainly want someone to build or run AI tools for them.
- Leaders who would rather hand the decision to an advisor than make it themselves.
- Teams looking for a quick list of AI tools to buy.
Still Setting Your Priorities?
The Private Executive AI Strategy, $7,500 by application, is a defined engagement in which Brian works your assessment through with your leadership team until you have agreed on your AI priorities. The retainer is for the stretch after those priorities are set, when you want ongoing access to Brian's judgment on decisions as they come up, from reviewing proposals before you sign to looking back at how earlier decisions turned out. When the business changes, he updates the order of priorities in writing.
Executive Strategy detailsThe strategy is established. The decisions keep coming.
Your initial assessment establishes where AI belongs and what deserves attention. The advisory relationship helps you maintain that direction as new decisions arise.
Over six months, Brian works with you to evaluate proposed investments, examine vendor recommendations, revisit earlier decisions, and adjust priorities as business conditions change.
After six months, leadership should have:
- Significant AI proposals evaluated before commitments were made.
- A documented record of recommendations and decisions.
- Earlier investments reviewed against their intended results.
- Priorities updated to reflect changes in the business.
- Clear accountability for each consequential AI decision.
AI Advisory Retainer
The advisory relationship gives you independent strategic counsel as those decisions arise, with a consistent process for evaluating proposals, protecting priorities, and reviewing results.
Engagement scope is determined by the leadership involved and the complexity of the decisions your business faces.
Owner Advisory
For owners who personally make the company's major AI decisions.
Brian provides continuing independent counsel on proposed investments, vendor recommendations, competing priorities, and business risks.
He helps the owner evaluate decisions before committing resources and reviews earlier decisions as new information becomes available.
- Who has access:
- The owner and up to two other named leaders, three people in total.
- Who Brian advises:
- The owner directly. His read goes to the owner, who carries it to the leadership team.
- Decision scope:
- AI decisions tied to the priorities in your assessment, including the vendor proposals and pilot plans for those initiatives and the question of which priority should move next and which should stop.
- Quarterly leadership or board read:
- Not part of this tier.
Leadership Advisory
For companies where AI decisions involve multiple executives or departments.
Brian works with the owner and leadership team to evaluate competing initiatives, establish consistent decision standards, and maintain alignment across the business.
The engagement includes examining how decisions in one department affect other parts of the company and keeping leadership accountable to established priorities.
- Who has access:
- The owner and up to five other named leaders, six people in total.
- Who Brian advises:
- The owner and the leadership team together.
- Decision scope:
- Any AI decision anywhere in the company, including new ideas your assessment did not cover and tools a single department wants to adopt, and Brian reads every AI vendor proposal and pilot plan in the company before anyone signs.
- Quarterly leadership or board read:
- Once a quarter, Brian gives his read on the company's AI direction directly to your leadership team or your board.
Brian's judgment on the record, decision by decision.
Every significant decision Brian advises on is documented, including the opportunity being considered, the risks and tradeoffs, his recommendation, and the decision leadership makes.
Earlier decisions are revisited as results become available. This allows leadership to evaluate what worked, what changed, and what deserves attention next.
Over time, the company builds a documented history of its AI decisions and the reasoning behind them.
Brian's written opinions
Every vendor proposal or pilot plan your tier covers comes back with Brian's written opinion before anyone signs, including what its Red Line and Kill Date should be, meaning the plain rule for what counts as failure and the date when someone checks the results and decides whether it stays. Every question you bring him gets his direct answer on what he would do and why. Each quarter he also rereads your assessment against what has changed in the business and sends you a written update to the order of priorities, so the plan you started with stays current instead of going stale in a drawer.
A record of every decision
Brian keeps a running written record of each AI decision he weighed in on, what he advised, and what your company chose. Each quarter the record also includes a review of how past decisions turned out against the assumptions they were made on, so your leadership can see which judgments held up and hold the next decision to a better standard. Every decision in the record belongs to your company. Brian gives his recommendation and his reasons, and your leadership keeps full authority to decide. The record shows both, so there is never any doubt about who made the call.
From a discovery call to Brian at the table.
The retainer is billed one month at a time at the start of each month, and the six-month minimum is a commitment in the signed agreement rather than a payment made up front.
Book a discovery call
Use the button on this page to request a discovery call with Brian.
Decide together whether it fits
The call is a conversation about the AI decisions in front of your company and how you make them today, and by the end of it you and Brian decide together whether the retainer is the right fit. There is no application to fill out.
Sign the retainer agreement
If the retainer fits, the next step is a written retainer agreement that sets your tier and names the leaders who can bring Brian questions. Once it is signed, billing happens at the start of each month.
Start from your assessment
The retainer is built on the findings of an AI assessment of your company. The $1,500 AI Strategic Opportunity Map is the starting point, and if your company has already completed a Private Executive AI Strategy engagement, that assessment serves the same purpose. The Map is purchased on its own and is not credited toward the retainer.
Bring Brian your decisions
Your named leaders bring their questions and proposals to Brian directly, and he weighs in on every decision your tier covers.
What the retainer does not cover.
Not Included
- Building, installing, configuring, or managing AI tools.
- Writing prompts or workflows for your team.
- Training sessions.
- Reselling software.
How the retainer differs from the other engagements.
AI Advisory Retainer, from $10,000 per month
- Ongoing access to Brian's judgment on AI decisions as they come up, for as long as the retainer runs.
- Built on the findings of your AI assessment.
- Brian reviews AI investments, vendor proposals, and pilot plans before you commit.
- Six-month minimum, then month to month.
Private Executive AI Strategy, $7,500
- Brian works directly with your leadership team to decide which AI investments deserve priority and why.
- Brian interviews your leaders and key employees and looks at where work gets stuck.
- The $1,500 Opportunity Map is included, and a Map you've already bought is credited toward it for 90 days, subject to acceptance.
- By application.
AI Strategic Opportunity Map, $1,500
- A written read on where AI can create value in your company and what deserves your attention first.
- Delivered in writing within five business days, with no meeting required.
- Your team takes the findings and acts on them independently.
Common questions.
Does Brian recommend vendors or get paid by them?
Brian is independent of the vendors whose proposals he reviews, and he doesn't sell tools or implementation. If he has any relationship with a provider, including any referral compensation, it is disclosed to you in writing.
How is it billed?
The retainer is billed monthly, at the start of each month, so you're never asked to pay for months in advance. Every engagement begins with a six-month commitment, which both sides agree to in the advisory agreement, with nothing collected up front. After the first six months, the relationship continues month to month, and either side can end it with 30 days' written notice. Engagements start from $10,000 per month, and if you'd like to move between Owner Advisory and Leadership Advisory, the change in scope and fee takes effect at the start of the following month.
Does an Opportunity Map payment count toward the retainer?
No. The Map is purchased on its own, and the $1,500 credit applies only to the Private Executive AI Strategy, so it is not applied to either retainer tier.
Can a company change tiers?
Yes. A change between Owner Advisory and Leadership Advisory takes effect at the start of the next month, and it does not restart the six-month minimum.
Can the named leaders change?
Yes. If someone leaves the company or a different leader needs to bring Brian questions, you can swap one named leader for another with notice.
How the engagements fit together.
Three levels of strategic involvement, built on one assessment.
AI Strategic Opportunity Map
A written assessment identifying where AI creates value and which opportunities deserve attention first.
Private Executive AI Strategy
Brian works directly with leadership to establish priorities and guide important AI decisions.
Continuing independent guidance as AI investments, proposals, and business needs evolve.
Bring Brian the next AI decision.
Before you commit to the next AI investment or vendor plan, Brian reviews it and tells you plainly what he would do, and the record of what he advised and what you chose stays with your company. Your team does the building, and the decisions stay yours.
Independent strategic guidance for owners and leadership teams making consequential AI decisions.
The final engagement scope and fee are established through a qualification conversation.
Explore an Advisory Relationship