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Fractional Chief AI Officer

Your AI effort does not need another strategy. It needs an owner.

Most organizations stuck on AI are not short of ideas, budget or vendors. They are short of one person who is accountable for turning any of it into results. True Cedar plays that position — your AI Quarterback, on retainer, for a fraction of a full-time AI executive.

Sound familiar?

The symptoms are remarkably consistent.

If you recognize three or more of these, the problem is almost certainly not the technology.

You have pilots, not production.

Two or three AI experiments got started. They demoed well. None of them are running in the business today, and nobody can say exactly why.

Every vendor claims AI. You can't referee.

Each one sounds credible. Each one contradicts the last. There is no one in the room whose job it is to tell the difference.

You bought licenses nobody uses.

The seats are paid for. Adoption is a fraction of what you expected, and the renewal is coming up.

Your data is already leaving the building.

Staff are pasting customer information, contracts and financials into public chatbots today, because no one gave them an approved alternative.

The board asked, and you improvised.

You know what you said. You also know you would rather not be asked again with the same answer ready.

It is everyone's priority, so it is nobody's job.

AI shows up in three departments' goals and on no single person's performance review.

The actual problem

AI work dies in the gap between strategy and execution.

Someone produces a strategy. Someone else is expected to build. In between sits a set of decisions nobody owns: which vendor, whose budget, what data is allowed where, who goes first, what happens when a pilot works, and what happens when one does not. Those decisions need authority and continuity. On most org charts, no one has both.

A full-time AI executive would solve it. For most organizations that role is impossible to justify, impossible to fill, or both — so the gap simply stays open, and the AI budget quietly converts into pilots and unused licenses.

The AI Quarterback

Read the field. Call the play. Move the ball.

A quarterback does not run every route. They see the whole field, decide what the team runs, direct people who do not report to them, and carry the accountability for whether the ball moves. That is the job.

Read the field

A standing view of where AI creates real value in your operation and where it is noise, refreshed as the technology and your business change.

Call the play

A prioritized roadmap that says what runs now, what waits, and what you should decline outright, with the reasoning attached.

Run the huddle

A regular cadence with your leadership team, translating technical reality into decisions executives can actually make.

Manage the line

Vendor evaluation, negotiation and oversight, so you stop paying for three tools that overlap and none that fit.

Coach the team

Enablement and practical training so the capability you already pay for gets used by the people who need it.

Protect the ball

Acceptable use, data handling, access and oversight established deliberately, rather than written in a hurry after an incident.

Engagement tiers

Scaled to how much of the position you need played.

Every engagement is a monthly retainer. The difference between tiers is cadence and how much True Cedar owns directly.

Advisory

Direction and a sanity check

Monthly cadence

  • Monthly working session with leadership
  • Roadmap ownership and quarterly reprioritization
  • Async access for decisions between sessions
  • Vendor and tooling sanity checks

Best fit: Organizations that know roughly where they are going and need an experienced second opinion before committing money.

Operating

Someone owns it now

Bi-weekly cadence

  • Everything in Advisory
  • Vendor evaluation, negotiation and oversight
  • AI governance, acceptable use and data handling
  • Adoption and enablement across teams
  • Accountable to agreed outcomes, reviewed quarterly

Best fit: Organizations with real budget in motion that need one person accountable for turning it into results. Most clients start here.

Embedded

In the building, shipping

Weekly cadence

  • Everything in Operating
  • Weekly cadence and hands-on execution direction
  • Direct oversight of internal teams and integrators
  • True Cedar build capacity available for the work itself
  • Board and executive reporting

Best fit: Organizations actively building AI into products or core operations, where the work needs direction every week rather than every month.

Retainers are scoped to the size of the organization and the scope of the mandate. All tiers are month-to-month after an initial term, and you can move between them as the work changes.

Boundaries

What this role is not.

Not a full-time hire

You are buying senior judgment and accountability at the cadence you need it, not another salary, seat or headcount requisition.

Not a reseller

True Cedar does not resell AI platforms and takes no vendor commissions. When we tell you a tool is wrong for you, there is nothing on the other side of that advice.

Not a replacement for your team

We work alongside your existing technology leadership and staff, who are usually capable and already fully committed.

Not a slide deck

The measure of the engagement is what reaches production and gets used — not what gets presented.

Common questions

What executives ask first.

What is a fractional Chief AI Officer?

A fractional Chief AI Officer is an experienced AI leader who owns your organization's AI direction on a part-time, ongoing basis instead of as a full-time executive hire. They set the roadmap, evaluate and manage vendors, establish governance, drive adoption, and stay accountable for results.

How is this different from hiring an AI consultant?

A consultant typically delivers a recommendation and leaves. A fractional Chief AI Officer stays and owns execution: running the cadence with leadership, holding vendors to account, and making sure work reaches production. You are buying ongoing ownership, not a document.

Do you replace our CTO or IT team?

No. True Cedar works alongside your existing technology leadership and staff. Most clients have capable people who are already fully committed to running the business; the AI Quarterback role adds focused ownership of AI without pulling them off their day jobs.

Are you tied to particular AI vendors or platforms?

No. True Cedar is vendor-neutral and does not resell AI platforms. Recommendations are based on what fits the organization's requirements, data and budget.

How much does a fractional Chief AI Officer cost?

Engagements are structured as a monthly retainer and tiered by how much involvement the organization needs, from a monthly advisory cadence to weekly embedded leadership. Pricing is a fraction of a full-time AI executive. We scope it on a short call.

Who owns AI at your organization today?

If the honest answer is “nobody, really,” that is the conversation. Tell us where things stand and we will tell you whether this role would actually help.

Start the Conversation