A named fractional CTO picks the one or two uses worth doing. You get guardrails, a named owner, and a pilot with a clear success check. The rest gets a no.
"The board asked for our AI strategy. I have a list of ideas and no decision."
Founder, B2B software"We could add AI in six places. I do not know which one is worth the risk."
VP Product, SaaS"Someone wants a chatbot on the site. Nobody has said what it is for."
Head of product, marketplace"If this answers wrong, I cannot tell you who owns it."
COO, softwareCTO 2.0 puts one named CTO on that decision. You get one or two uses, guardrails, an owner on your team, and a no for the rest.
Each phase ends with documents you keep, whether or not you keep us.
NDA first, then read-only access. We read the product, the data, and the AI ideas already on the table.
We write the guardrails and name the owner before anyone builds.
The pilot runs against that check. You get a written call to continue, change, or stop.
smileML uses emotion recognition to help people understand each other in video calls and face-to-face meetings. Maxiom built the product and staffed the team. The model runs on the device. Video and images are analyzed locally and are never sent to the cloud. SaleSpot, smileML's sales analytics tool, reads sentiment and body language during video calls. The stack includes Python and TensorFlow. The limit was part of the product: meeting video could not leave the device. This page is a fractional CTO who picks which AI uses are worth a pilot, sets guardrails, and names an owner. The smileML work was a product build. It was not this engagement.
When a review needs more hands, Maxiom engineers in Ashburn, VA do the work under your CTO's direction. Same standards, same owner.
Meet MaxiomYes, when that is the honest answer. Most ideas do not get a pilot. You get a written no, and one or two uses that are worth a success check.
This page is the decision, the guardrails, and the pilot. Maxiom also builds AI products. The smileML case study on this page is one of those builds: emotion recognition that runs on the device, so video never goes to the cloud. If you want a build, say so on the call.
A check written before the pilot starts, in language a product owner can score. It says what the pilot has to do, which data it may use, and who owns a bad answer.
No. We are not auditors. We do not certify security, models, or compliance. You get the guardrails, the owner, and the written result of the pilot. If the data is protected health information, start at https://cto20.com/healthcare-cto.
A healthcare CTO owns PHI, BAAs, and EHR calls. HIPAA readiness is a gap list before a questionnaire. Oversight reviews an outsourced team that is already shipping. Launch readiness is a checklist before the first users. Technical due diligence is a read before a deal or a raise. A stalled project review is for a build that is late, over budget, or stuck. That page is at https://cto20.com/rescue-a-stalled-software-project. This page is for the pressure to add AI: which uses get a pilot, who owns them, and which ones get a no.
Book a time. It is a 30-minute call about the AI ideas on the table, the data they would touch, and who is asking. You get a clear yes or no on fit.
The product, the data those ideas would touch, and who is asking. You leave with a clear yes or no.
