A Chief AI Officer, fractional.

A Fractional CAIO owns AI strategy, vendor management, governance, and ongoing investment direction on your behalf, without you carrying a full-time CAIO salary. Concretely: keeps your AI strategy current as tools and the market shift, negotiates and manages vendor contracts, runs quarterly board-ready reviews of your AI estate, scopes new use cases as they arise, oversees training direction, and maintains governance + risk + compliance posture. Cancel monthly, no 12-month lock-in.

A full-time CAIO in the UK costs £150,000-£300,000 fully loaded. Few SMEs (£1m-£100m turnover) can justify that on Year 1. A Fractional CAIO gives you the senior judgement, vendor relationships, and governance discipline at 10-20% of the all-in cost: typically £3,500-£6,000 per month depending on tier. For most UK SMEs in the £1m-£20m range, fractional is the right shape for at least the first 18-24 months of AI maturity.

Tier 1 (Foundation, £3,500/month, ~1 day/week): for SMEs early in AI adoption, needing strategy + governance + monthly review. Tier 2 (Embedded, £4,500/month, ~2 days/week): adds active vendor management, weekly cadence, hands-on use-case scoping. Tier 3 (Operational, £5,500/month, ~3 days/week): adds direct project oversight of any concurrent sprints + training programme direction. Tier 4 (Strategic, £6,000/month, ~4 days/week): full embedded leadership for an SME running 2-3 concurrent AI initiatives. We discuss the right tier in the kick-off call; you can move between tiers month-to-month.

Consultancy hours are project-bounded: you ask, they deliver, they leave. Fractional CAIO is an ongoing relationship: same senior person, same context, same accountability, every month. You get continuity (no re-briefing), proactive direction (we surface things you should look at), and a fixed monthly cost (no surprise invoices). Most clients move from one-off consultancy to fractional after their second or third project, because the context carrying-cost gets too high.

Yes. Monthly cancellation, no minimum term, no notice penalty. The reasoning: if Wingenious is not earning the monthly fee, you should be able to walk. Conversely, we are incentivised to keep delivering value every month, not to lock in revenue.

Gary leads every Fractional CAIO engagement personally in 2026. As the practice grows, additional senior practitioners will be added, but the founder-led principle holds: every fractional client has one named senior human owning the relationship, supported by the named AI workforce (Alex, Alice, Alicia, Adam, Aaron, Abigail, all "A.I.") for research, drafting, and execution.

Most clients arrive via the Readiness Audit (£2,450 / 5 days) → optionally Feasibility Study (£3,950) → first Implementation Sprint (from £8,000) → Fractional CAIO from there. Fractional clients commission new sprints as needed (priced separately), with the CAIO scoping and overseeing each. Training cohorts run alongside as needed. The CAIO is the ongoing leadership layer that orchestrates everything else.