Fractional AI Leadership
The AI executive function, without the full-time hire. Olyra owns your AI portfolio: strategy, governance, vendor negotiation, implementation oversight, and board reporting — at a fraction of a C-suite salary.
What is fractional AI leadership (a virtual Chief AI Officer)? It is an ongoing service in which an experienced AI leadership team takes part-time ownership of an organization's AI agenda: maintaining the roadmap, prioritizing initiatives, overseeing governance and risk, evaluating and negotiating with vendors, supervising implementations, coaching internal teams, and reporting results to executives and the board. Organizations use it when they need credible AI leadership now, but a full-time Chief AI Officer isn't justified — or can't be hired fast enough.
AI portfolio ownership, end to end
- AI roadmap ownership and quarterly evolution
- Initiative prioritization and budget management
- Governance oversight and risk coordination
- Vendor evaluation, selection, and negotiation support
- Program leadership and implementation oversight
- Executive and board support with clear reporting
- Internal-team coaching and capability building
- Compliance coordination with legal and IT
- Quarterly business reviews against agreed KPIs
- Ongoing optimization of what's already live
Three levels of engagement
All tiers include roadmap development, use-case prioritization, risk assessment, ROI modeling, vendor guidance, integration planning, change management, and team enablement. Minimum commitment three months; scale up or down with 30 days' notice. Typical ranges below — confirmed at scoping.
From $5,000/mo
For organizations testing pilots that need experienced guidance and a steady cadence.
- Monthly strategy sessions (2 hours)
- Async advisory channel
- Vendor and tool evaluation guidance
- Monthly roadmap review
From $10,000/mo
For organizations actively implementing across multiple use cases.
- Strategy sessions (4 hours/month) + bi-weekly syncs
- Implementation oversight
- Team training and coaching
- Quarterly business review
From $15,000/mo
For organization-wide deployment that needs near-daily leadership.
- Weekly check-ins + daily async access
- Full program leadership
- Vendor negotiation at the table
- Board-level reporting
USD, typical starting ranges. Final scope and fee are confirmed on the scoping call and depend on portfolio size and systems complexity.
Why organizations choose this over hiring
Speed
Leadership in place in weeks, not the 6–12 months a credible CAIO search takes.
Breadth
You get a team's pattern-recognition across industries and vendors — not one person's history.
Economics
A serious full-time AI executive costs multiples of the Growth tier, before equity and ramp time.
Fractional leadership FAQ
Who actually does the work?
A senior Olyra team led by a named engagement lead — the people who scope your portfolio are the people in your meetings. It's an Olyra company service with continuity built in: documented decisions, shared context, and no single point of failure, which is one advantage over hiring any individual.
Does this replace hiring a Chief AI Officer?
Sometimes it precedes one. Several clients use fractional leadership to build the portfolio, prove the operating rhythm, and then hire internally into a defined role — often with our help writing the mandate. Others keep it fractional indefinitely because the economics stay better. Both paths are supported; there's no lock-in incentive on our side.
How do you handle vendor negotiations?
We sit on your side of the table, vendor-neutral by policy: we take no referral fees or resale margins from AI vendors. We define requirements, run structured evaluations, pressure-test claims in demos and proofs-of-concept, and support commercial negotiation including exit and data-portability terms.
Can we pause or change tiers?
Yes — tiers scale up or down with 30 days' notice after the initial three months. Portfolios breathe: heavy implementation quarters need Growth or Transformation; steady-state quarters can drop to Foundation.
Find out what AI can actually do for your operations.
Start with an AI Operations Audit — a fixed-scope diagnostic that maps your workflows, scores your AI readiness, and hands you a prioritized 120-day roadmap. If we don't find real opportunities, you'll know that too.
Request an AI Operations Audit → Prefer to talk first? Book a 30-minute scoping call.