AI consulting services that start with how your business runs today

What does artificial intelligence consulting cover?

If part of your team’s week goes into reading and retyping (order emails, intake forms, invoices, the same customer questions), AI may take some of it off their desks. Artificial intelligence consulting works out which parts, at what cost, and what happens when the AI gets one wrong. It has three layers:

• Advice: which steps a model could take over: the reading, sorting, drafting or answering.
• A plan: the order to do them in, what each would cost, and how you would know it worked.
• The build: each workflow connected to the systems your team already uses, then kept running.

An AI consultant may sell one layer or all three. We sell all three, and say when a step needs no AI: fixed rules are plain automation, and work that needs its own database and screens is custom software. We build both, so our advice has no reason to lean toward AI.

What does good AI consulting look like?

A few signs separate sound AI consulting from a sales pitch:

• It starts from the work: how jobs move through your business, and where they wait.
• Every recommendation carries its numbers: what it would save, and what it would cost to build and to run, model fees included.
• A person stays in the loop: anything the AI can’t read with confidence goes to someone on your team, with a note saying why.
• Failure is planned for: a model that is down, a vendor that changes its API, an input in a form never seen before.
• Each phase has a measure: agreed before anything is built.
• No is an acceptable answer: when AI isn’t worth it for a task, a good consultant says so.

Ask any firm where each of these runs today.

How do you choose an AI consulting partner?

Put the same questions to every firm, and ask for the answers in writing:

• What you own and what they run: what stays yours, what they build and run for you, and what happens if you leave.
• What it costs to run: model and tool fees, hosting and any monthly fee, and what each quote leaves out.
• Who answers when it breaks: a named person, and how they will hear about the problem.
• What happens when the AI is wrong: whether unclear items wait for a person, and how a mistake is put right.
• Where they run AI in a live business: a workflow in production, handling real inputs, that you can ask about.
• Whether they will say AI isn’t the answer: some tasks need only plain automation, or no change at all.

Treat big promises with care. When the Federal Trade Commission announced Operation AI Comply in September 2024, its chair said there is no AI exemption from the laws on the books. The cases it announced included companies that claimed AI could help people make money through online storefronts. Before those talks, our AI readiness checklist helps you take stock of where you stand.

Which kind of AI consulting work do you need?

Find the row closest to where you are.

If two rows fit, we settle the order on the call.

What is digital transformation consulting?

Digital transformation consulting is the wider version of this work: moving a company’s operations onto connected software, with AI as one part. Most search results for the term come from firms serving big enterprises, where it means a company-wide change program.

For an operating business it means finding work that still runs on paper, in spreadsheets or by retyping (the PDF order keyed in by hand, the weekly report rebuilt every Monday) and moving it into systems that share their data. A model that reads is AI work. Fixed rules or a link between two systems is a Zapier, Make or n8n workflow. A system of record of its own is a custom software build. We do all three, and say which is which before anything is built.

How does AI consulting work with us?

The first step is a 15-minute call about the work you’d like off your team’s desks. No price is quoted on it. If the work fits, we write a proposal for your business, and the work begins when you accept it.

The AI readiness assessment comes first: we interview your team, map how the work runs and rank where AI fits, with what each step would save and cost. The roadmap turns that ranking into phases, each with its cost and its measure, and coaching sessions with your team keep it moving. Then the build: we connect each workflow to your systems through their APIs and run it for you each month. Not every business needs every step; the call works out which yours does. To start on your own, use the free AI readiness assessment worksheet.

Some work we turn down: training models, AI that screens job applicants or decides anything significant about a person, someone else’s tool resold under our name, and governance or compliance sign-off. If we aren’t the right fit, you will hear that on the call.

Who runs your AI once it is live?

An AI step in a live workflow needs looking after. OpenAI’s deprecations page says it regularly retires older models, and that software relying on them may need occasional updates to keep working. Connected systems change their APIs, and new kinds of input arrive. Agencies sell that upkeep as a monthly managed service, as Main & Machine and ProsperSpark do on their price pages.

We run what we build. Take AlvyOne, the operations system we built and run with Alvy Logistics: its order intake reads the emails that reach the order inboxes at Alvy and at DSI, which shares the order system. It reads each order from the message and its attachments, creates it in their dispatch system, and holds anything unclear for a person, with a note in the dispatch team’s chat. Switched on June 29, 2026, it runs with a health report every 15 minutes, a second model if the main reader fails, alerts when AI spending runs high and two switches that stop it. Alvy is owned by our co-founder Noah Alvarez, and DSI is an Alvy company. The AlvyOne case study sets out each stage with its date.

For a workflow we build, the proposal sets out how we run it each month. In the US agency price pages and guides we read in October 2026, running AI automation costs $500 to $2,000 a month for an established local business (ProsperSpark, BetOnAI, Main & Machine and Sam Automates). For multi-location and regional businesses it runs $2,000 to $4,500 a month, and for national ones $5,000 to $10,000 a month, those two from BetOnAI and Sam Automates. Most of those pages also list a setup or build fee, and AI consulting cost gives the market’s setup and monthly figures at each level.

To find where AI would earn its place in your business, book a 15-minute call.