Services
Most work starts with the Six-Pillar AI Capability Review: an independent view of your AI capability for the executive team, built with the people responsible for AI. It is not a prerequisite: every module below stands alone, so you can start with the one that matches your most pressing problem. Everything is fixed scope and fixed fee, and designed to leave capability behind, not dependency.
Start here
A quick self-check on your own, or the full review with your executive team. Both use the same six pillars, and both cover generative AI, the tools staff use every day, and the older models already making decisions.
Free · About 10 minutes
Twelve questions across the six pillars, plus a few about your role, for the person responsible for AI. You get an indicative scorecard, the constraint most likely to stall your program, a plain description of what to ask for if you commission help, and a written assessment from the principal within two business days.
Fixed fee · 2 to 3 weeks
An independent view of your organisation's AI capability for the executive team, built with the people responsible for AI.
Founding cohort
We are running the Capability Review with a small group of organisations at a reduced fee, in exchange for candid feedback on the method. Each needs a named executive sponsor alongside the leader responsible for AI. About 2 to 3 weeks; fee on request.
The method
Organisations reach the far side of a serious investment cycle and find they are not meaningfully more capable than when they started. That is rarely because the model failed. AI capability depends on six pillars moving together, and those pillars usually belong to different parts of the organisation. Most programs invest in one or two and assume the rest will follow.
Strengthen technology without the people ready to absorb it and you get the adoption gap. Install governance without the process maturity to run it and you get policy theatre. The pillars were built against the established assurance frameworks rather than in place of them, so a finding maps back to NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001, not to a vocabulary only Emeris uses.
Modules
Pillar 01
Who decides, and whether those decisions stick.
What the review looks for
Title without a mandateYou carry accountability for AI without the decision rights to match. Until that changes, every other fix will be negotiated, delayed or overridden. Settle who decides what before adding more pilots.
Governance
Your decision rights written down and agreed at the top: a one-page charter, a map of who owns what across technology, data, risk and the business, and a paper asking for the authority the role needs.
2 to 3 weeks · fixed fee
Governance
Exactly what applies to you, and by when. From 10 December 2026, organisations covered by the Privacy Act that use personal information in automated decisions that could significantly affect people must explain this in their privacy policy. Plus AI registers, impact assessments, and the expectations of your regulator or central agency.
Fixed scope · fixed fee
Governance
A funding case that gets through your CFO, Finance or the board: benefits logic, risk framing and a credible delivery model.
Per bid · fixed fee
Pillar 02
The people using AI, and the people running it.
What the review looks for
Capability gapThe tools are ahead of the people. Usage is uneven and you have little help running the agenda, so progress depends on your personal bandwidth. Build capacity before scaling adoption.
Human capital
Ninety days of confidential, experienced counsel: fortnightly sessions, pre-reads before big decisions, and a straight read on vendor and project claims.
90 days · fixed fee
Human capital
Executives leading from the front, and staff using generative AI well in their actual roles. Executive briefings and role-based training, delivered with design and learning partners.
Cohorts · priced per program
Pillar 03
How pilots start, finish and prove their value.
What the review looks for
Pilot treadmillPilots start easily and rarely finish, and value isn't measured the same way twice. That leaves you exposed at the next budget review. Triage the portfolio and set one way to measure value.
Process
A defensible story on value. We triage your pilots into scale, fix or stop, and set up value measures, financial or public, that you can report against each quarter.
4 to 6 weeks · fixed fee
Process
One proven pilot taken into operation: a named owner, a funded path, the governance evidence built as it goes, and a handover so your own team runs it.
60 to 90 days · fixed fee
Pillar 04
The content, tools and systems underneath your AI.
What the review looks for
Weak foundationsYour AI tools are only as good as the content and systems underneath them, and you can't yet vouch for either. Wrong answers erode trust faster than wins build it. Find and fix the riskiest sources first.
Technology
Which of your content is safe to put in front of an AI tool, and what to fix first: currency, ownership, metadata, classification and access.
3 to 4 weeks · fixed fee
Technology
What you are actually running, including shadow AI, a short approved list, and a fast, consistent way to say yes or no to new tools. The criteria name no product, so they hold whichever tools you run.
3 to 4 weeks · fixed fee
Pillar 05
Who you buy from, and who you learn from.
What the review looks for
Vendor-led agendaYour AI direction is being shaped by whoever pitches next. Without common criteria and trusted outside advice, you buy tools rather than capability. Set the criteria and the short list.
Partnerships
Who you buy from, learn from and share with: vendors, peers, industry bodies and research partners, so your agenda stays yours.
Fixed scope · fixed fee
Pillar 06
Where AI is taking you, and whether people are with you.
What the review looks for
No shared destinationThere is no shared vision of where AI should take the organisation, people don't know what it means for them, and adoption stalls without a reason people believe in. Set a clear destination and a story people can own.
Engagement and communications
A clear vision and strategy for AI that your executive owns, the story your staff and public need to hear, and a consultation approach that builds trust rather than suspicion.
Fixed scope · fixed fee
Ongoing
The machinery run for you: committee secretariat, use-case intake, registers, reporting and horizon scanning. You lead; we keep it moving. Monthly retainer.
Included
Every engagement leaves your AI use cases documented against NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001, ready for transparency statements, audit and the next executive question.
Questions
The Self-Check is free, takes about ten minutes and is completed by one person, so its scorecard is indicative. The Capability Review takes two to three weeks, involves an executive sponsor, the leader responsible for AI and a few peers, and ends in a readout and a plan your executive can act on. Many organisations do the Self-Check first to decide whether the review is worth doing.
No. Every module stands alone. If you already know your most pressing problem, start with the module that addresses it. The review is for when you want an independent view across all six pillars before deciding where to put effort.
A contractor gives you months of one person's time, and what stays behind depends on the handover. A training program gives you attendance and a completion rate. These are defined services: each has a deliverable you keep, a fixed fee and a set duration, and each is tied to a problem you would recognise. You take the ones you need, in the order that suits you.
With the Capability Review. It ends in a priority order rather than a list of everything that could be better. Often the answer is in the data: where it came from, and whether it is fit for the decision being made with it. Just as often it is somewhere nobody has been looking, because the model was assumed to be the problem and the model was fine.
That is the work of CAIO Counsel and the AI Capability Program: teaching the people who commission, build and sign off AI how to assess what they are being sold and what they already own, using methods drawn from intelligence practice rather than vendor material.
The Capability Review and every module are fixed scope and fixed fee, agreed before work starts, with fees on request. The smaller ones are designed for a short internal approval path. The Fractional CAIO Office is a monthly retainer. We don't sell by the hour or the day.
Yes. Work commissioned by a business area is delivered in a form the central AI team can adopt, so your register and approval pathway stay whole.
Both. The failure modes are not unique to government. They appear wherever decisions are automated at scale under scrutiny, and regulated financial services and critical infrastructure are arriving at the same questions through their own obligations.
No. Emeris is independent, with chosen partners. Our method names no product, so it works with the tools you already have and keeps working if they change. When you need design, training or delivery capacity, we bring in partners we have chosen and stand behind.
Every engagement leaves your AI use cases documented in a living AI register, against NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001, ready for transparency statements, audit and the next executive question.
Start here
The free self-check takes about ten minutes and shows where your program stands on each pillar. The principal follows up with a written assessment within two business days.