Two tiers
| Half-day per week | One day per week | |
|---|---|---|
| Time | About 4 hours a week | About 8 hours a week |
| Best for | Companies with one or two AI projects live and a written policy | Companies running several projects, rolling out Copilot or Gemini, or growing fast |
| Standing meeting | Monthly with leadership | Every two weeks with leadership |
| New builds | Small changes and fixes | Small builds included; larger builds scoped separately |
| Training | New-hire onboarding | Onboarding plus quarterly team sessions |
Hours are a guide, not a stopwatch. Some weeks need more, some less. We report what we did every month.
What's in a typical month
- Roadmap ownership. Keep the 90-day plan current. Decide with you what's next, what's paused and what's not worth doing.
- Automation and assistant upkeep. Monitor error alerts, fix breaks, tune prompts, update source documents for custom assistants.
- Tool vetting. When someone on your team wants a new AI tool, we check its data terms, cost and overlap with what you already pay for. Most requests get a yes, no or "you already have this" within a week.
- License management. Review usage reports and move unused seats. This alone often covers a share of the retainer for companies with 30 or more Copilot or ChatGPT seats.
- Training. Onboard new hires on your AI tools and rules. Run refreshers when tools change.
- Policy reviews. Keep your AI use policy and approved-tools list current.
- Measurement. Track hours saved against the baselines from your assessment and report them in plain numbers.
- Vendor conversations. Sit in on software demos where AI features are part of the pitch, and ask the questions that cut through it.
Fractional lead or full-time hire?
A full-time AI lead with real implementation experience is a senior hire. For a sense of scale, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put median pay for management analysts, a broad category that includes many internal consultants, at $101,860 a year in May 2025 (BLS). A person who can also build automations and manage Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace AI settings typically costs more, before benefits (estimate).
A fractional lead makes sense when:
- AI work fills one or two days a week, not five
- You want someone who has already seen what works across several businesses
- You're not ready to define the role well enough to hire for it
It's time to hire when:
- You're consistently using more than the one-day tier and the backlog keeps growing
- AI work needs someone in the building every day, close to operations
- You have enough projects that one person can own them full-time
When you reach that point, we help you write the job description, interview candidates and hand off everything we've built. Graduating a client to their own hire is a good outcome, not a lost account.
How it starts
Most fractional engagements start after a readiness assessment or a first project, such as workflow automation or a training series. That way the retainer begins with a plan, not a blank page. If you come to us without either, the first month includes a condensed assessment.
What it costs
Most Kansas City fractional engagements land between $2,500 and $8,000 per month, from the half-day tier to the one-day tier. Three-month minimum, then month to month.
The minimum exists because the first month is mostly learning your business. Value shows up in months two and three. See all prices on the pricing page, and how retainers compare with hourly and project rates in our AI consultant cost guide.
Book a Free AI Assessment Call
Comparing several firms for an ongoing role? Our guide on how to choose an AI consultant lists 12 questions to ask. Distribution and manufacturing companies, in particular, often use a fractional lead to manage a long list of small automations.
Frequently asked questions
Who will actually do the work?
A senior member of our Kansas City consulting team, named at the start of the engagement and consistent month to month. You won't get a different person every week. When a task calls for a specialist, such as a complex integration, they bring that person in and stay accountable for the result.
Can we change tiers?
Yes. Many clients start on the one-day tier during a rollout and step down to half a day once things are stable. Others start small and step up when a new project begins. Larger builds that don't fit either tier get scoped and priced separately, so the retainer stays predictable.
Is this the same as a fractional CIO or IT provider?
No. A fractional CIO or managed IT provider handles your whole technology stack: devices, security, networks, vendors. A fractional AI lead focuses on AI: what to adopt, how to build it, how to train people and how to keep data safe in AI tools. We coordinate with your IT provider on anything that touches their systems.
What do we get each month in writing?
A one-page monthly report: what we worked on, hours used, hours saved by live automations against baseline, tools reviewed, issues found and what's planned for next month. It's written for the owner, not for engineers. If something isn't paying off, the report says so.
What happens if we stop?
You keep everything. All automations, assistants, documentation, policies and accounts are in your name. In the final month we write a handoff document covering what's running, what needs regular attention and who on your team should own each piece. Some clients come back for an occasional project afterward.
Talk through whether you need a fractional lead
On a free 30-minute call, we'll ask what AI work you have running and planned, and tell you whether a retainer, a project or nothing at all makes sense.