The Engagement
The situation, and what it asks of you.
You have an AI decision in front of you that will shape the next two to five years of your platform, your operations, your team, or your product. The landscape is moving fast, the options are overwhelming, and the cost of getting it wrong is measured in years, not weeks. You need someone who builds these systems, not someone who advises about them from a distance.
What I Bring
Where I advise.
The AI Decision Before the Build
You have more AI options than you can fund, each arriving with a compelling case. The hard part of an AI program is rarely the engineering — it is the selection. Which bet to make. In what order. At what risk. And which to leave. I work the decision before anything is built: an independent read on the options, a sharper view of what your organization should and shouldn't own, and a position you can defend to your team or your board. When a program is already running and the numbers are not moving, the work runs in reverse — finding what to simplify, cut, or consolidate before more is added.
The Discipline AI-Native Work Requires
Once AI enters your workflow, the temptation is to relax discipline. Models read natural language. They operate without rigid structure. It feels safe to assume specification matters less. The opposite is true. An AI-native organization needs more process discipline, not less. The work moves upstream — into the specs, the guidelines, and the institutional knowledge that tells the model what correct looks like. At Kacti AI, we no longer review code. We review the process, the specs, and the behavior of the design. Once those are right, the code is trivial — AI builds it and verifies it. Correctness and consistency live in the process, not in the review.
The AI Leverage Inside the System You Already Run
The sharpest AI moves in an established company rarely sit at the application layer. They sit inside the platform the business already runs on — the ERP, the CRM, the data warehouse that hold a decade of operational logic and the memory of how the work actually flows. Most AI advisors never see those moves, because they have never been inside one of these systems. They recommend what they can see from the outside: chatbots, copilots, content. I spent fifteen years at Microsoft building Dynamics 365 — the data models, the integration points, the decisions from 2014 that still run your operations. My work is finding that leverage and deploying AI where the system you already run starts to compound.
How I Work
Two ways to begin.
Intro Call
Free — 15 minutes
A 15-minute fit check, honest in both directions.
You tell me the decision you're facing and what's making it hard. I reflect back the core pattern I'm seeing and whether my experience is the right match. If it's not, I'll say so directly.
You'll get one concrete observation before we hang up. No prep on your end. No pitch on mine.
I take on a few projects per month. This call is how we both decide if this should be one of them.
Strategy Session
$1,000 — 60 minutes
A structured working session.
Before we meet
You send me the relevant context: architecture docs, product briefs, the decision you're stuck on. I review everything and arrive with an independent read on what's going on.
During the session — 60 min
We work the real problem, not the presenting symptom. I surface the structural constraint underneath, map where complexity is hiding cost, and identify the 2–3 moves that change the trajectory.
Within 24 hours
You receive a written decision memo: the core finding, recommended next steps, and what I'd watch for. A reference you can hand to your team or your board.
You leave with a clearer system, sharper priorities, and a clear strategic direction. I come prepared. We work the problem together.
Ongoing advisory and scoped engagements are available for select projects.
Fit Check
Is this right for you?
For You If
We are likely a fit when…
- You're a CEO, COO, founder, or VP of Operations making a strategic AI call that will reshape how your organization builds, operates, or competes.
- You're facing an AI architecture or platform decision with significant downstream impact and want to get it right before committing resources.
- You're integrating AI into enterprise systems and need someone who understands both the legacy platform and the frontier AI side.
- You're a CTO, VP of Engineering, or technical leader who needs an independent read from someone who builds these systems daily.
- You're an investor evaluating AI technology and need technical depth you can trust.
Not For You If
We are likely not a fit when…
- You need implementation: engineers to write code, manage sprints, or ship features.
- You're still exploring whether AI is relevant to your business. (It is, but that's a different conversation.)
- You're looking for application-layer AI help: chatbots, content generation, marketing automation.
- You want validation for a decision you've already made.
Begin
When the timing works.
If anything above described your situation, book the intro call. Fifteen minutes, no commitment, no pitch. We'll figure out together whether I can help.
Book Your Intro Call