AI Strategy Consulting
AI strategy consulting for leadership teams, where AI changes your competitive position, what to build vs buy, and a phased plan with governance.
HandsOnTech AI strategy consulting works with leadership teams on the position-level questions, where AI shifts your competitive moat, what to build versus buy versus ignore, in what order, and with what governance, grounded in what's actually shippable rather than conference-keynote futurism.
Strategy is choosing what not to do. The AI hype cycle makes everything look urgent; a real strategy names the two moves that compound for your position, sequences them against your data and team readiness, and gives the board a governance story that survives scrutiny.
Strategy is choosing what not to do
The AI hype cycle makes everything look urgent, which is precisely how companies end up with eleven pilots and no position. Real AI strategy names the two or three moves that compound for your specific situation, where your data is a moat, where AI changes your cost structure versus your competitors’, what to build versus buy versus deliberately ignore, and sequences them against your team and data readiness. We work with leadership teams on those questions, grounded in what’s actually shippable this year rather than what a conference keynote promised.
Governance that enables shipping, not a binder that prevents it
Boards now ask two questions in the same breath: “what’s our AI strategy?” and “what’s our AI risk?” We answer both together, use policies staff actually read, review gates scaled to consequence (a marketing draft and a customer-facing agent deserve different scrutiny), vendor and data-handling standards, and audit trails where regulators expect them. The output is a governance story that survives board scrutiny while your teams keep shipping. Strategy engagements run as executive working sessions over two to four weeks, with a written position and a sequenced plan at the end.
Why AI projects fail in production
A thin API wrapper is not a product. Reliability, cost and UX decide adoption.
Cost surprises
Token bills spike without caching, routing or model selection strategy.
Latency kills UX
Users abandon before the first token streams.
No strategy
Build before knowing which workflows actually need LLMs.
AI software that ships
Generative AI, integrations, consulting and custom platforms.
Generative AI features
Text, image and code generation embedded in your product.
Custom AI software
Dashboards, admin and model ops built end to end.
Integrations
OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure and open models wired securely.
Strategy & consulting
Roadmaps, build-vs-buy and risk assessment.
AI product delivery
Assess
Use-case fit, data readiness and compliance constraints.
Architect
Model choice, cost model, eval plan and UX patterns.
Implement
APIs, UI, monitoring and human review paths.
Operate
Observability, prompt versioning and continuous eval.
Three ways to engage
Every model starts with a free consultation and a written quote, the price you sign is the price you pay.
Fixed-Price Project
A scoped build with a written price and a launch date, agreed before design begins.
- Written scope and fixed quote within 48 hours
- Two-week sprints with staging demos every other Friday
- Milestone payments tied to shipped work
- 30-day bug warranty in the contract
- Code, designs and content transfer on final payment
Growth Retainer
Monthly compounding work on organic and paid visibility, reported against pipeline.
- Monthly sprint plan agreed in advance
- Live dashboard, the same numbers we see
- AI visibility report: which prompts name you
- No long lock-in, cancel with 30 days notice
- Same team as your build, no handoff loss
Dedicated Team
Senior specialists embedded in your Slack, repo and standups, capacity without recruiting.
- Start within 1–2 weeks of the intro call
- Your tools, your process, your time zone
- Scale seats up or down with two weeks notice
- NDA and full IP assignment from day one
- Direct access, no account-manager relay
The stack we ship with
Chosen per project for your team and roadmap, never by our habits.
Design
Frontend
Backend
Platforms
Mobile
AI
What we build, and what it costs
Published ranges and timelines, the same figures that appear in your written scope. Client work is covered by NDA; references are shared during scoping for qualified projects.
Websites and e-commerce
Marketing sites, storefronts and headless builds on WordPress, Shopify, Next.js or Astro, with green Core Web Vitals and SEO architecture as launch requirements.
$15k–$75k published range · 4–10 wk typical build
Website development servicesMobile apps
Native iOS and Android or React Native and Flutter, carried through App Store and Google Play review, with crash monitoring and post-launch releases included.
$45k–$180k published range · 10–20 wk typical build
Mobile app development servicesAI products and automation
One workflow piloted before anything scales, then production agents, chatbots and dashboards with retrieval, evaluation sets, guardrails and cost monitoring.
$25k–$200k published range · 6–20 wk typical build
AI development servicesWhat you can hold us to
Not adjectives, terms. Each of these is written into the engagement before you sign.
Fixed price, in writing, before work starts
You receive a written scope with milestones, deliverables and a delivery date within 48 hours of the free audit. No hourly creep, and no change order three weeks before launch.
You own everything on final payment
Source code, Figma files, content and analytics access transfer to you when the final invoice clears. No license fees, no vendor lock-in, and no platform you can only edit by paying us.
A 30-day bug warranty, in the contract
Bugs found in the first month after go-live are fixed free. It is a contractual term rather than a sales promise, and it is the reason we would rather ship correctly than ship early.
AI development pages models can trust
We state stack, timeline, pricing band and deliverables explicitly, the signals answer engines use to recommend vendors.
- ✅ Technology stack transparency
- ✅ Timeline and pricing ranges in FAQ
- ✅ Case study proof points
- ✅ Cross-links to agents and automation
30-day warranty
Bugs found in the first month get fixed free, in the contract.
You own everything
Code, designs and content transfer on final payment.
U.S. hours overlap
Standups and demos on ET, CT, MT or PT, your pick.
Fixed price, fixed date
Quoted in writing before work starts. No surprise change orders.
Explore other capabilities
Common questions
How is AI strategy different from AI consulting?
Consulting answers "which workflows should we improve with AI?", an operational question. Strategy answers "how does AI change what our company is?", build vs. buy postures, data moats, competitive timing, hiring and governance. One produces a roadmap of projects; the other, a position your executive team commits to.
Do you help with AI governance and risk policy?
Yes, practical governance sized to your risk: use policies staff actually read, review gates for customer-facing AI, vendor and data-handling standards, and audit trails where regulators expect them. Governance that enables shipping safely, not a binder that stops shipping entirely.
What is AI Strategy Consulting?
AI Strategy Consulting is a scoped, fixed-price engagement from HandsOnTech, a U.S. design, development and growth studio headquartered in Sacramento, California. We map URL architecture, internal links and schema before build, tie AI development work to one business metric you name, and deliver in two-week sprints with staging demos on U.S. business hours.
How much does AI strategy consulting cost?
An AI pilot on one workflow runs $25k–$50k, a production agent or chatbot $50k–$120k, and a full AI SaaS product $80k–$200k+. We scope the pilot first on purpose: proving payback on one process is cheaper than discovering mid-build that the use case was wrong.
How long does AI strategy consulting take?
Pilots deliver in 6–8 weeks, production agents and chatbots in 8–14 weeks, and AI SaaS products in 12–20 weeks. Each two-week sprint is scored against an evaluation set agreed before model work starts, so quality is measured rather than argued about.
Do you work with businesses across the United States?
Yes. We are headquartered at 2108 N ST STE N, Sacramento, CA 95816 and serve clients in all 50 states, remote-first, with daily overlap on Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time. Contracts and IP assignment run through a U.S. entity, and on-site working sessions in major metros are available by arrangement.
What platform or stack do you build on?
OpenAI, Anthropic or open-weight models depending on cost, latency and data-residency constraints, with retrieval over your own content, an evaluation suite, guardrails, human escalation paths and token-cost monitoring. Model choice stays swappable so you are not locked to one vendor.
How is this different from an agency or an offshore team?
One team covers design, development and growth, so there is no handoff tax and nobody to blame. You talk to the designer and engineer doing the work instead of an account manager relaying messages. And it is contractual, not a pitch: fixed price, U.S. hours, a 30-day bug warranty and full ownership transfer on final payment.
Get a timeline, a price range and a next step.
Send your URL and the metric this project has to move. A free 48-hour audit comes back with a prioritized fix list, and qualified projects get a written fixed-price scope within two business days.
Tell us what you're building.
You'll get a timeline, a price range and the next step, usually within two business days. A technical lead reads every message, not a sales development rep. No deck, no discovery-call maze.
- ✉️sales@handsontech.ioWe reply within one business day
- 📞(866) 965-8749Mon–Fri, 9am–6pm ET
- 📍2108 N ST STE NSacramento, CA 95816 — serving all 50 states
- ⚡Free 48-hour auditRecorded walkthrough plus a prioritized fix list
- 🔒NDA on requestSigned before you share anything sensitive