Fractional AI Leadership
Fractional Chief AI Officer for SMB & Mid-Market
A senior AI owner on retainer: monthly prioritization, vendor control, one workflow shipped or verified per month, and board-ready reporting. $5k-$12k/month.
1/mo
workflow shipped or verified every month, minimum
Quarterly
board-ready impact reporting with real numbers
$5k–$12k
per month, scoped to your company, cancel with notice
Ask “who owns AI here?” at most 50-to-500-person companies and you get five hands or none. IT owns the licenses, marketing owns a chatbot, finance owns the spend, someone in ops built an agent, and nobody owns the outcome. Then the board asks what the AI budget returned, and the room looks at the CEO.
A Fractional Chief AI Officer is the answer that doesn’t require a $300k+ hire: a senior AI owner, on retainer, accountable for the number when the board asks.
What You Get Every Month
The deliverables, named:
- A prioritized AI initiative queue. Everything in flight, ranked by expected payback, with the zombie projects killed instead of quietly renewed.
- Vendor and tool-spend review. What you’re paying for versus what’s being used. Unused licenses and overlapping tools get flagged and cut. This line alone often covers the retainer.
- One workflow shipped or verified, minimum. Every month, something concrete either goes live or gets a measured verdict. No advisory-only months.
- Quarterly board-ready impact reporting. The AI line item, explained in numbers, in a format a board reads in five minutes.
Price: $5k–$12k/month, scoped to your company. Month to month with notice. Retainers should earn renewal by shipping, not by contract terms.
Why Fractional Beats the Alternatives
Versus a full-time hire: the senior people worth hiring cost several times this retainer, are hard to attract to a 200-person company, and would spend half their time under-loaded. You need the judgment applied monthly, not the headcount.
Versus nobody owning it: that’s the current plan, and it’s how companies end up in the 42% that abandoned most of their AI initiatives (S&P Global, 2025). Tools accumulate, spend grows, nothing gets measured, and every quarter the “what did we get?” question gets harder to answer.
Versus an advisory retainer: opinions don’t ship. The monthly deliverables here are named on purpose, so both of us can see whether the retainer is earning its keep.
And because I don’t resell platforms or take vendor commissions, the vendor-control function actually works: when a tool should be cut, it gets cut.
Where This Fits
Most companies don’t start here. They start with a pilot rescue sprint or a governance readiness sprint, and at the end there’s a working workflow, or a governance baseline, and one question: “who keeps this running?” This retainer is that answer. Teams that need skills before strategy start with AI training, and the case studies show the kind of implementation work that backs all of it.
Who This Is For
- Companies of 50 to 500 people with real AI spend and no single accountable owner
- CEOs tired of being the de facto AI strategist between board meetings
- Teams coming out of a rescue or governance sprint that want the discipline to stick
- Boards and owners who want the AI line item reported like every other investment
Schedule a consultation and tell me who owns AI at your company today: calendly.com/ronankeane/ai-revenue-acceleration-readiness-discovery-call
Or send a message if you’d rather start with a question.
/faq
Frequently asked questions
Why not just hire a Chief AI Officer?
At most 50-to-500-person companies the math doesn't work: a full-time senior AI executive costs several times a fractional retainer, and the honest workload is a fraction of a full-time role. What you actually need is the judgment (prioritization, vendor control, measurement discipline) applied consistently every month. That's what a fractional arrangement buys.
How is this different from keeping a consultant on retainer?
A typical advisory retainer buys you access to opinions. This retainer has named monthly deliverables: a prioritized initiative queue, a vendor and tool-spend review, one workflow shipped or verified, and quarterly board-ready reporting. If a month goes by and nothing shipped, you can see it, and so can I.
What does a typical month look like?
We maintain a prioritized queue of AI initiatives and kill the ones that don't earn their place. I review your vendor and tool spend against actual usage. One workflow gets shipped or verified with a real measurement. And everything rolls into reporting your board can read in five minutes. That cadence, repeated, is the whole product.
How long is the commitment?
Month to month with notice, not an annual lock-in. Retainers earn renewal by shipping. Most companies start after a rescue or governance sprint, when the value of having a named owner is obvious.
Do you take commissions from AI vendors you recommend?
No. No reselling, no referral fees, no commissions. When I recommend keeping, cutting, or replacing a tool, the recommendation isn't earning me anything. That independence is most of the value of the vendor-control function.
How much does it cost?
Between $5,000 and $12,000 per month depending on company size, how many AI initiatives are live, and how much vendor spend is under management. You get a fixed monthly number after a scoping call.
/next step
Ready to talk specifics?
Schedule a 30-minute discovery call. No pitch deck, just a direct conversation about where your team is and what's blocking progress.
Last updated: July 2, 2026