Fractional Chief AI Officer
for SMEs
Senior AI leadership on a day or two a week. We work out where AI actually earns its keep in your business, prove it on one thing, and tell you plainly when the honest answer is that it does not.
What a Fractional CAIO Does
A Fractional Chief AI Officer - also described as a fractional CAIO, an AI advisor, or a part-time Head of AI - owns the question of where artificial intelligence creates value in your business, and the rules that keep it from creating problems. The role sits with the board rather than with the IT function, because most of the decisions are commercial rather than technical.
For a company under a few hundred staff, this is not a full-time job. It is one or two days a week for a few months, then considerably less once the answers are in place and somebody internal owns them.
Find where it pays
We start with where your people's hours go, not with a product catalogue. The output is a short list of candidate uses, each with a number attached that you could measure today, and an honest note on the ones that look appealing and will not work.
Prove one of them
One task, one team, a measure agreed in writing before anything is bought. We run it, review the corrections weekly, and give you an expand, change or stop recommendation based on what happened rather than on what was promised.
Set the rules before your staff do
Someone in your business is already pasting customer information into a free AI tool. A short written policy on what may go where is quicker to produce than the incident it prevents, and it is what larger customers increasingly ask to see.
Handle the vendors
We sit on the other side of the table for you: what the tool actually does, what happens to your data, what the price does when usage grows, and whether a month-long trial is possible before a year-long commitment.
Leave it running without us
Someone internal ends up owning this. We train them, write down what we did and why, and reduce our involvement on a schedule agreed at the start. An advisor who becomes permanently necessary has failed at the job.
Who This Is For
Businesses with no idea where to start
You know competitors are talking about it. Every supplier has an AI feature now. Nobody has connected any of it to how your business actually makes money, and you would rather not spend to find out.
Businesses that bought something and saw nothing
Licences are being paid for, a pilot happened, and no number moved. Usually the technology was fine and the working practice around it never changed.
Boards asking management for an AI plan
You need something defensible rather than something impressive: what we will try, what it costs, what we expect, and when we will stop if it does not work.
Businesses where staff got there first
Your team started using AI tools without being asked to. That is initiative rather than misconduct, but it needs a rule about what information may leave the business.
How This Differs From a Fractional CTO
The two overlap and we offer both, so it is worth being direct about the difference. A Fractional CTO owns your technology: the systems, the engineering team, the architecture, the delivery. A Fractional CAIO owns one narrower question across the whole business - where AI creates value and what rules govern it - including in parts of the company that have nothing to do with your product.
If you have engineers and your main question is whether AI belongs in the software you build or in how your team builds it, that is CTO territory, and our software development advisory and the AI adoption guide for engineering teams cover it. If you have no engineering function to speak of and your question is about operations, admin, sales and service, this is the right page.
For a good number of businesses one person does both, and we will say so rather than sell you two engagements.
If you would rather read before you talk to anyone, everything we tell clients is published on the AI for business hub: what it can do by function, what it costs, and whether your data is safe in it. Firms in professional services have their own page, because confidentiality and the billable hour change most of the answers.
How Engagements Work
- ✔ Opportunity review, two to three weeks. Where the hours go, what the candidates are, what each is worth. A fixed-scope starting point if you are not ready to commit further.
- ✔ Proof, six to eight weeks. One task, one team, one measure agreed up front, and a recommendation at the end that may well be to stop.
- ✔ Ongoing advisory, a day or two a week. Roadmap, governance, vendor decisions and board reporting while the change beds in.
- ✔ Board and management briefings. Standalone sessions when the requirement is understanding rather than delivery.
Day rates sit in the same range as our fractional CTO work - see the pricing guide for what drives the number. Engagements are usually retainer or fixed-scope. We will quote the smallest piece of work that answers your question, which is frequently the opportunity review on its own.
Governance Your Customers Will Ask About
Two things arrive sooner than most businesses expect: a customer questionnaire asking how you govern AI, and a member of staff doing something with company data that nobody authorised. Both are cheaper to handle before they happen.
We put a written policy in place covering what information may be sent to which tools, who approves new tools, and what happens when output is wrong. Where personal data is involved the reference point in the UK is the ICO's guidance on AI and data protection. If you sell into the EU, the AI Act's transparency duties for customer-facing AI apply from 2 August 2026. Larger buyers may also ask whether you work to ISO/IEC 42001 or the NIST AI risk framework, both voluntary. Our AI governance policy guide publishes the template we use, so you can see the shape of it before speaking to us.
Find Out Where AI Fits Your Business
A free half-hour call. Describe the business and we will tell you the two or three places worth testing, or that there are none yet.