Ciao. Meet your AI leadership team, by the fraction
We are the CAIO Office: a named lead CAIO, backed by a senior bench of AI architects, taking the Chief AI Officer seat part‑time. We tie every AI initiative to a business outcome, design cost control in from day one, and train your people to use AI without leaking your data.
Ciao means hello. It also means goodbye
We use both. Hello to senior AI ownership. Goodbye to everything that makes AI hard to explain to a board. And when the role is ready to go full-time, goodbye to us, with a clean handover.
Hello what you get
- One accountable ownerfor every AI initiative, with a success measure.
- A costed planrun cost estimated before anyone builds.
- Spend you can explainby team, product and workflow, not just by invoice.
- One well-architected systembefore ten fragile ones.
- People trained on secure useso adoption grows without shadow-AI risk.
Ciao what you lose
- Pilots nobody ownsstalled after proof of concept.
- Invoices finance can’t explaintokens, GPU time, “AI uplifts”.
- Agent sprawlten agents, ten teams, one growing bill.
- Shadow AIcompany data in tools no one approved.
- Vendor-led roadmapsdecisions made on fit, not partner incentives.
AI arrived one pilot at a time. Nobody owns the bill
Most companies did not plan their way into AI. They bought licences, ran pilots and let teams try tools. Some of that worked. A lot of it stalled.
of GenAI projects were abandoned after proof of concept by the end of 2025
Gartner’s assessment of hundreds of implementations, not a census. The named causes: poor data, weak risk controls, escalating costs and unclear business value.
of AI initiatives delivered the expected ROI, in IBM’s study of 2,000 CEOs. Only 16% scaled enterprise-wide.
of FinOps teams now manage AI spend, up from 31% two years earlier.
added to breach costs on average where shadow AI was involved. 1 in 5 organisations reported one.
One accountable owner who understands the business case, the architecture and the bill
That is the seat the CAIO Office fills.
Three jobs, in this order, with one owner
Every engagement covers all three. Your named lead CAIO leads; the senior bench brings the depth each job needs.
Business-aligned AI strategy, plan first
We start with the outcomes the business needs, then decide what to build, buy or stop. Every initiative gets an owner, a success measure and a run-cost estimate before anyone builds.
Outcome · owner · run cost
AI cost control, designed in
We treat AI spend the way good cloud architects treat cloud spend: cost attribution, model tiering, caching, batching, routing and placement go into the design, not into a cleanup project a year later.
Attribution · tiering · published levers
Well-architected AI, not agent sprawl
One well-designed system before ten fragile ones. We review agent, memory and integration designs against published frameworks such as the AWS and Azure Well-Architected guidance for AI workloads.
Agents · memory · integrations · security
Running through all three: secure AI use and training
See the approach →Start with a diagnostic. Then we take the seat
Fixed fee first, so you know the cost before you commit to anything ongoing. Prices in USD.
Tier 1 · AI Cost and Architecture Diagnostic
- Inventory of AI use and spend, including unapproved tools
- Cost baseline and a cost-per-workflow model
- Target reference architecture on your existing cloud
- Ranked portfolio: build, buy or stop
- Governance and security controls, each with an owner
- A board-ready 90-day plan
The diagnostic rolls into the retainer
Tier 2 · The CAIO Office retainer
- Ownership of the AI roadmap and portfolio
- Architecture review before new AI work is funded
- AI spend reporting tied to outcomes, levers applied as we go
- Vendor and platform decisions made on fit
- Governance and secure-use policies kept current
- Regular reporting to leadership and the board
Board Advisory: $5K–$7.5K/month, about 2 days a month
Operator: $18K–$23K/month, about 2 days a week
Tier 3 (optional) · Secure AI use training, and a free way to start
Safe use of AI with company data, shadow AI, prompt hygiene, and when output needs a human check
“Cut your AI bill”: how AI costs build up, and the design choices that control them
Chart: Anthropic Engineering, multi-agent research system, Jun 2025.
Get the recording, the slides and the self-assessment scorecard
Not a lone consultant. A senior bench
One named fractional CAIO owns your seat and reports to your leadership. Behind them, top-tier AI architects in cost, platforms, agents and security step in when the work calls for it.
Erico Cardelli
Senior technical architect, enterprise cloud background · [placeholder: title]
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One accountable seat. Several senior minds behind it
Meet the senior bench →
Results, measured against your own baseline
We don’t promise a fixed saving. We apply the published levers that fit your workloads and report what changed.
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— [placeholder: name, title, company]Ten questions to score your AI estate
Answer each one yes, partly or no. Scoring guidance and next steps are in the scorecard that comes with the free workshop.
- Can you name the business outcome and owner for each AI initiative you pay for?YesPartlyNo
- Can you see AI spend by team, product or workflow, not just by vendor invoice?YesPartlyNo
- Do you know your cost per completed task for your top three AI use cases?YesPartlyNo
- Do you use more than one model tier, matching cheaper models to simpler tasks?YesPartlyNo
- Where prompts repeat, are you using prompt caching or batch processing?YesPartlyNo
- Do you know how many AI agents run in production, and who approved each one?YesPartlyNo
- Is there a clear design for what each AI system remembers, where, and who can access it?YesPartlyNo
- Do you have a written, enforced policy on which AI tools staff may use with company data?YesPartlyNo
- Have your staff been trained on secure AI use in the last 12 months?YesPartlyNo
- Before new AI work is funded, does someone review its architecture, run cost and security?YesPartlyNo
Why not hire a full-time Chief AI Officer?
You may need one eventually. Many companies don’t yet. Full-time AI leadership is expensive: Heidrick & Struggles found US AI officers averaged $380,000 in total cash plus $498,000 in equity and long-term incentives. A fractional seat gives you senior ownership now and a clear decision later. If the role should become permanent, we help define it and hand over.
Source: Heidrick & Struggles, 2025 Data, Analytics & AI Officers Compensation Survey.
We already have a CTO or CIO. Why do we need you?
Your CTO or CIO runs the whole technology estate. We work with them, not around them, and give focused senior time to AI strategy, AI cost and AI architecture, the work that usually gets squeezed. Most of our recommendations land in their roadmap.
How is this different from an AI agency?
An agency is paid to build, so the answer tends to be “build more.” We don’t sell a build team or software. We decide what is worth building, set the architecture, and hold whoever builds it to that standard, your team or an integrator. [placeholder: confirm disclosure, e.g. “We take no reseller, referral or partner fees.”]
Can you guarantee a specific saving?
No, and be cautious of anyone who does. Savings depend on your workloads, vendors and usage. We apply published levers where they fit, such as prompt caching (Anthropic bills cache reads at 0.10× the normal input price; writes cost 1.25×, so it pays only when prompts repeat) and batch processing (OpenAI lists 50% off for jobs that can wait up to 24 hours), and measure the result against your baseline.
Source: Anthropic, Prompt caching with Claude; OpenAI API docs, Batch API (retrieved Oct 2026).
Do you work remotely?
Remote-first, board-ready. Your named CAIO presents to the board every quarter, live on video by default, in person when it matters, with travel at cost. It is a normal way to buy this role: on GoFractional’s marketplace, 60% of fractional Chief AI Officer roles are remote, 20% hybrid and 20% in-office (a small sample of 5 job posts and 302 profiles).
Source: GoFractional, Fractional CAIO rates 2026 (marketplace data).
Does the EU AI Act require certified AI training?
No. Article 4, which has applied since 2 February 2025, asks providers and deployers of AI systems to take measures to support AI literacy among their staff. It does not require a certificate, a test score or a specific format. Our secure-use training is designed to be one practical, documented part of those measures. Your counsel should confirm what applies to you.
Source: European Commission, AI Literacy Q&A; Regulation (EU) 2026/1744.
You don’t need more AI. You need AI you can explain
What it’s for, what it costs, and who owns it. Start with a diagnostic: in a few weeks you’ll have a costed, business-aligned plan and a clear view of your AI spend and risk.
Not ready to talk?
Start free with the workshop and scorecard →