Fractional Chief AI Officer
A senior CAIO four days a month. Without the full-time hire.
Monthly retainer scaled to required setup · Limited capacity · Custom mini-proposal in 48 hours
When you need a CAIO but can't hire one
You've realized AI is a strategic function, not a project. You need a voice in the boardroom, someone who chairs the AI committee, picks vendors, plays the adult in the room between your CTO who wants everything custom and your CFO who wants everything SaaS. Someone who's seen this play out before.
Except a full-time Chief AI Officer costs €200-300k/year, and honestly — when you do the math — you don't have the workload to justify it. An occasional advisor isn't enough either: you need someone who "owns" the problem.
Hence fractional. Four days a month — enough to be inside, not so many it costs like a full C-level.
What a Fractional CAIO does with you
- Two-to-four Pan days per month (depending on plan)
- Board attendance when AI is on the agenda
- AI committee chairmanship (if it doesn't exist, we create it)
- Rolling review of AI initiatives, kill/scale/keep recommendations
- Email, Slack, WhatsApp business — response within 24 working hours
- One monthly emergency handled in 4 hours (critical decision, vendor pitch, surprise audit)
- Operational delivery via PiirZ Digital with preferential terms for fractional clients
- Quarterly business review with CFO and CEO
- Two-page monthly reporting: what's working, what's not, what needs deciding
How the retainer unfolds
Month 1 — Onboarding
Two weeks of immersion: board shadowing, deep-dives with business owners, audit of existing AI initiatives, stakeholder mapping. Output: a twelve-page positioning memo.
Months 2-12 — Operations
Monthly cadence: two-to-four distributed days, review of all AI initiatives, vendor decisions, risk presence, mentoring of internal leads.
Quarterly — QBR
Formal session with CEO/CFO to review AI pipeline, measured returns, priorities for the next quarter.
Exit
60-day notice from either side. No commercial lock-in clauses. When the client has developed an internal CAIO, they leave.
This retainer is for you if
- You're CEO or COO of a post-Series A scale-up without an internal Chief AI Officer
- You lead a European SME (€20-150M revenue) in digital transformation
- You head a family-owned holding with 3-5 heterogeneous BUs
- You just lost your innovation/digital lead and want a 12-month bridge before hiring full-time
Who it's not for
- Companies with an existing CAIO or senior CTO with specific AI experience
- Companies under €10M revenue (the price isn't justified)
- Those looking for "on-demand" consulting without retainer
How the investment works
Discovery call (60 minutes, free): we understand your setup, the presence intensity you need, the stakeholders I'd work with.
Written mini-proposal in 48 hours: monthly setup (2/3/4 days), monthly retainer, duration, operational delivery conditions via PiirZ.
Scoping call (60 minutes, if the mini-proposal is on track): we define cadence, stakeholders, quarterly evaluation KPIs.
Retainer agreement: signature, onboarding starts within the next week. Monthly billing, 60-day notice from either side.
The retainer scales to the required setup (board presence, AI committee chairmanship, intensity of monthly decisions) and to seniority of stakeholders. A post-Series A scale-up and a multi-BU holding need different retainers.
Limited capacity: I work with at most four fractional clients concurrently. When the slot is full, there's a waitlist.
NOT included: operational delivery via PiirZ Digital (separate contract, preferential rates for fractional clients), travel beyond first monthly trip, internal speaking events.
Frequently asked questions
Are four days a month really enough for a CAIO?
For 90% of mid-market companies, yes — because CAIO value isn't in hours, it's in decisions. Strategic AI decisions for a €50M company are five-to-seven per month.
Are you in the boardroom or outside?
Typically I attend the board as "permanent invited guest" on AI topics, without formal role. A formal appointment is negotiated separately.
What changes if my company is in a regulated sector?
Regulated sectors need more time on compliance — so the Executive plan (4 days) is almost always the default. We include AI Act deadline monitoring from day one.
Can I do a "trial month"?
No, but you can do an AI Strategy Sprint (separate service, 4 weeks) as "long onboarding" and decide whether to switch to fractional. Sprint investment defined in the mini-proposal.
Is PiirZ Digital part of my contract?
The base contract is just with me. If during the retainer you need operational execution, PiirZ Digital steps in with a separate contract at preferential rates. It's an option, not an obligation.
Limited capacity. Free conversation.
Fill in the pre-qualification form (5 questions, two minutes). A sixty-minute call to figure out whether fractional is really the right structure, whether we're culturally aligned, and whether I have an open slot in the next 60 days.
Request a proposal