Fractional Chief AI Officer
for SMEs
Senior AI leadership on a day or two a week, for businesses where AI is already in use and now needs an owner. We set priorities across departments, keep spend and risk under control, and report on it to the board like any other part of the business.
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, reducing once the practices are in place and somebody internal can own them.
If you have not yet worked out where AI fits your business, start with our AI adoption programme instead. It is a fixed-scope piece of work that finds the opportunities, puts the first rules in place and proves one use case. This role is for what comes after.
Set priorities across the business
Once several departments are using AI, each with its own tools and budget, someone has to decide what gets funded next and what gets switched off. We keep a single list of use cases, each with a measured result or a measure to judge it by.
Measure what is already running
Licences that nobody uses, pilots that never ended, and tools whose results were never checked. We review what is in place against what it costs, and recommend expanding, changing or stopping each one based on what happened rather than on what was promised.
Keep the rules current
A policy written for the first pilot rarely survives the tenth tool. We maintain it as usage grows, answer the AI sections of customer and supplier questionnaires, and track the regulation that applies to you.
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 past the first pilot
One use case worked and three more departments want their own. Somebody now has to decide what is funded, what is safe, and how it is measured, and nobody internal has the time or the background.
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 whose customers audit them
Larger customers are asking how you govern AI, and the answer needs to hold up to scrutiny year after year rather than be written once for a single questionnaire.
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
- ✔ Ongoing advisory, a day or two a week. Roadmap, governance, vendor decisions and board reporting while AI becomes part of how the business runs.
- ✔ AI estate review, two weeks. A fixed-scope look at the tools, spend, policies and results already in place, with a recommendation on each. A useful starting point before agreeing a retainer.
- ✔ 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 a retainer, often after a fixed-scope estate review. Businesses still at the beginning will usually get more from the AI adoption programme first.
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.