Sound familiar?
The board is asking about AI. Someone needs to own the answer
If three or more of those sound familiar, you don't have an AI tooling problem. You have an AI leadership gap.
Strategy stuck in the boardroom
Your competitors are talking about AI and your plan is still a discussion item.
Shadow AI with no guardrails
People across the business are using AI tools, with no coordination and no oversight.
Pilots that never reach production
You're spending on licences and pilots, but nothing has proved its worth or shipped.
Governance questions you can't answer
Client security questionnaires now ask how you govern AI, and the answers are thin.
No single owner at the leadership table
Everyone agrees AI matters. Nobody actually owns it.
The role
One person, accountable for how your business uses AI
A Chief AI Officer owns how a business uses AI, what gets built, what gets bought, how it's governed and how it pays for itself. Most businesses need that leadership now. Far fewer can justify the C suite salary to provide it. A fractional CAIO gives you the same seat at the table for the days you actually need.
01
Strategy and roadmap
Where AI genuinely helps your business, where it doesn't, and the order to do things in. A plan tied to commercial outcomes, not a technology wishlist.
02
Governance and guardrails
Clear policy on data, security and acceptable use. Answers that satisfy your board, your clients and their security questionnaires. We hold ISO 42001, the standard for managing AI responsibly.
03
From pilots to production
Pilots are easy. Production is where the value is. We take working ideas and turn them into systems your team relies on every day, with the ROI measured and reported.
04
Capability and adoption
Tools don't transform businesses. People do. We develop internal AI literacy across your team and a culture that keeps improving after we've gone.
The engagement
Embedded in your leadership team. Not a report. Not a retainer you forget about
We join your leadership rhythm for one to three days a month, depending on how fast you want to move. You get a named person, accountable for AI across the business, who turns up to the meetings that matter.
Days 1–30
See clearly
We assess where you actually are. Current usage, shadow AI, data readiness, quick wins. You get an honest picture of your position on the adoption curve and where the value sits.
Days 30–60
Set direction
Strategy, governance and a prioritised roadmap, agreed at leadership level. Policy your team can follow and your clients can audit.
Days 60–90
Ship something
The first priority moves into delivery. Not a slide about what's possible. A working thing, in production, with its impact measured.
Day 90+
A 30-day cycle
Each month we find the next business problem AI can help with, shape the answer and help your team action it. Quick turnarounds, with the return measured in weeks and months, not years.
The goal is independence, not dependency. We build your capability so the role can shrink, hand over to a permanent hire, or end. We’ll even help you write the job spec.
The options
Three ways to get AI leadership. Only one of them ships
Call it a fractional head of AI, a part-time Chief AI Officer or a fractional AI consultant with accountability. The label matters less than the distinction: a consultant gives you advice. A fractional CAIO owns what happens next.
Why Kyan
Independent advice, institutional backing
Hire a fractional CAIO and you're usually betting on one person, alone. Through Kyan you get the individual and the organisation behind them. We're a B Corp and hold ISO 42001 for AI management, ISO 27001 for security and Cyber Essentials Plus. So when your board or your clients ask hard questions about how you govern AI, the answers are already audited.
And if a piece of work needs building, there's a team of designers and engineers to call on. That's a bonus, not the pitch. The point is senior AI leadership, focused on your business.
“A licence isn't a strategy. The hard part isn't the technology. It's always been the people.”
Who you'll work with
Laurent Maguire
For more than twenty years Laurent has run large-scale digital transformation and innovation programmes for global brands like the Premier League, ITV, Canada Life and Sage, and for startups still finding their feet. The mission never really changes: find where the right technology helps a business grow faster or run more efficiently, then turn that into pragmatic solutions to real pain points.
Right now that work is all about AI. Laurent helps startups and enterprises adopt it from both ends; small internal initiatives that get people genuinely engaged, and working with senior leadership teams on strategies that stand up as a proper business case, with a return you can measure.
Questions
