definition / fractional chief AI officer
Fractional Chief AI Officer
A fractional Chief AI Officer is a senior AI executive who owns a company's AI decisions part-time — typically one day per week — instead of being a full-time hire. The role covers the same ground as a full-time CAIO: deciding what to automate and what to refuse, choosing vendors and models, controlling AI spend, and owning regulatory exposure such as the EU AI Act. "Fractional" describes the time commitment, not a fraction of the responsibility.
Companies at small and mid-size revenue face the same AI decisions as enterprises — which process to automate first, whether to build or buy, what a vendor's demo actually proves — but cannot justify a full-time executive salary to make them. The fractional model puts one accountable person on those decisions without the headcount.
Your CFO can own the AI investment. Who owns execution?
In a 2026 IBM Institute for Business Value survey, 62% of CFOs said their role had expanded into enterprise technology or AI strategy. Yet only 6% described their finance function as transformation-ready.
The gap between funding AI and getting value from it is operational. Someone has to select the process, inspect the data and exceptions, challenge vendor claims, set a measurable outcome, and decide whether to build, buy, scale or stop.
That is the work I take on as a fractional Chief AI Officer for manufacturing and industrial B2B companies.
Source: IBM Institute for Business Value, survey of 1,500 CFOs, published 30 September 2026. On the gap from funding to execution: Your CFO owns the AI budget. Who owns the process?
Three ways companies handle AI decisions
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| No AI owner | Full-time CAIO | Fractional CAIO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who decides | Nobody — or a vendor's salesperson | A hired executive | A senior external executive, 1 day/week |
| Cost | "Free" — until a failed project or a shelfware contract | Full executive salary + equity, six figures a year | From $9,000 / month, cancellable |
| Accountability | None; failed pilots have no owner | Clear, but hard to hire for an SMB | Clear; one named person signs off decisions |
| Fits | Companies not touching AI at all | Enterprises with an AI portfolio | Manufacturing & B2B firms at SMB revenue making their first serious AI moves |
The first 90 days
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| Month | What happens | What you have at the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Process valuation. I take the candidate processes apart and value them for automation — see process valuation. | A decision: do it / don't do it, with an order of magnitude. Not a slide deck — a verdict. |
| 2 | One pipeline. The chosen process gets built and runs on your real data. | A working pipeline your company owns — code, prompts, documentation. |
| 3 | Maintenance and the next decisions. The pipeline is kept alive; we go through the build-vs-buy queue for everything else. | A running system plus a decision habit: every AI question has an owner and an answer. |
Who this is not for
- Companies looking for a pentest or security audit — that is not what haker.ai does, despite the name.
- Companies that want to buy a ready-made AI tool off a shelf — the script marketplace is closed; what remains is judgment and one pipeline at a time.
- Enterprises that need a full-time executive with a department.
- Anyone who wants a chatbot because competitors have one. I will tell you not to build it, and that conversation is cheaper than the retainer.
Price
From $9,000 per month. One day per week. Minimum three months. I take a maximum of two clients at a time — when both slots are taken, the answer is a waiting list, not a junior substitute.
FAQ
Is one day a week enough?
For decisions, yes. A CAIO's job is choosing what to do and what to refuse, not writing code. Execution is done by your team or by a scoped pipeline project.
Do you work remotely?
Yes — EU and US time zones. Onsite workshops are possible when the process demands it.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes, before any process material is shared.
Why only two clients?
Because the value is judgment with context. Context on more than two companies at once stops being deep.
What happens after three months?
We either continue month-to-month, or I hand over a documented state your team can run without me. Both are planned outcomes, not a lock-in.