AI consulting that puts the system in place
Goal Boss is an AI consulting firm that does the implementation as well as the strategy. It sits with your senior experts, learns how they get results, and puts AI systems in place that do most of that work, bought or built. The first one is in daily use and measured within 90 days.
The work fits companies of 100 to 2,000 people whose product is the judgment of experienced people, with no AI team of their own.
If we do not think we can move the number, we will say so on the first call.
One function, 90 days
What the company holds at week 13
- A working system in daily use
- A result measured against a written baseline
- Managers who can run it and extend it
- A ranked list of what to do next
Strategy and implementation from one firm
At a company of a few hundred people, AI usually arrives in two separate purchases. A strategy firm writes the roadmap and leaves, and then someone has to be found to build it. Months pass before anything runs, and nobody owns the result.
Goal Boss does both halves, one function at a time. The same person who sizes the opportunity puts the system in place, gets the managers running it, and reports the number every week.
Most of the work is adoption. A system nobody uses returns nothing, so the managers get it before their teams do, along with the words for the conversation about what it changes.
Step one: a one-week AI opportunity assessment
Goal Boss spends five days at the company and finds the five best opportunities for improvement. The leadership team receives the report in person on Friday afternoon: the five ranked by annual value, a recommendation to buy or build each one, and a read on whether the managers are ready to run the first. The fee is fixed, and the report is the company's whether or not it goes further.
- Before the week
Prepare
The company sends a data export from a short request list, books the interview calendar, and has its managers take the four-minute readiness assessment.
- Monday
The room
Three hours with the four to eight people who run the function. Senior experts who know the work sit next to the executives who know the strategy.
- Tuesday to Thursday
The work
Goal Boss interviews the people who do the work, watches it get done, and sizes each workflow against the company's own numbers.
- Friday
The report
The leadership team receives the report in person that afternoon, with a recommendation it can act on the same day.
Step two: a 90-day implementation sprint
A sprint takes one or two of the five opportunities. Goal Boss puts each in place, gets it adopted, and measures the result against a baseline written down in week one. The sprint has one accountable leader at the company, a fixed fee, and a one-page scorecard every week.
- Weeks 1 to 2
Find
Goal Boss sits with the experts behind the one or two opportunities chosen, documents exactly how they get results, and measures the baseline.
- Weeks 3 to 8
Buy or build
Where a product already does the job, the company buys it and Goal Boss integrates it. Where none does, Will Pemble builds the system on your data. Either way it is held to SOC 2 standards, and your experts see it early and correct it.
- Weeks 5 to 12
Adopt
Managers get the system before their teams do, along with language for the conversation about what it changes. The job gets redesigned around the tool, and a weekly review keeps it in use.
- Week 13
Measure
The result is measured against the baseline from week one. You keep the system, the scorecard, and a ranked list for the next sprint.
Where the assessment looks first
These are the workflows to examine in each industry, not claimed results.
- Insurance services and claims administrators
- Medical record review, file notes and status reports, reserve reports, claim intake.
- Healthcare administration
- Prior authorization packets, denial appeals, coding review, intake.
- Professional services
- Engagement letters, first-draft work product, review checklists, client reporting.
- Business and IT services
- Ticket triage, proposals and statements of work, QA reviews, knowledge-base upkeep.
Private equity sponsors can also bring Goal Boss in for AI due diligence on a target or a working session with their portfolio CEOs. Work for private equity portfolios
Six questions to ask any AI consultant
Ask every firm you talk to, including this one. Goal Boss's answers follow each question.
- Will you build it, or hand us a plan?
- Most AI plans stall in the handoff between the firm that wrote the plan and whoever has to deliver it. Goal Boss delivers what it recommends.
- Do you earn anything from the products you recommend?
- Commissions and reseller margins bend recommendations toward a product. Goal Boss takes no commission from any vendor.
- Who owns what you build?
- The company should own the system, the code and the documentation outright. At Goal Boss it does.
- How will we know it worked?
- Ask for a baseline written down before the work starts and a number reported against it every week. Goal Boss measures the result in week 13 against the baseline from week one.
- Where does our data go?
- Ask where the system runs, whether your data can train anyone's model, and who tests the security. Goal Boss's commitments are on the security page.
- What happens to our people?
- Ask how the managers will explain the change to their teams. In a Goal Boss survey, managers were twice as likely as their staff to have had that conversation with their own boss.
Who does the work
Will Pemble built and sold Web.com, one of the largest web hosts on earth. He has been a full-stack engineer since 1995 and has worked with AI and machine learning since 2018.
For over twenty years he has also worked with owners and leadership teams on getting people to do the work that moves the number. Two books came out of it, Goal Boss: The Art and Science of Getting Stuff Done and Judgment Day: How to Lead When AI Breaks Everything.
His AI client work from the last two years is under confidentiality agreements, so no clients are named here. Recommendations from earlier clients and colleagues are on LinkedIn, and the sample report shows the format every company receives.
Questions about AI consulting
- What does an AI consultant do?
- An AI consultant finds the work AI can do well inside a company and recommends how to get it done. Goal Boss also does the implementation: it puts the system in place, bought or built, and stays until it is in daily use and measured against a baseline.
- How much does AI consulting cost?
- Goal Boss quotes a fixed fee for each engagement instead of billing hours. The sprint fee is stated in the assessment report, and the assessment fee comes off it when a sprint is signed within 30 days of the report. Fees are covered on the first call.
- How long does an AI consulting engagement take?
- The assessment is one week on site, with the report delivered in person on Friday. A sprint runs 90 days, and the first system is in daily use and measured by week 13.
- What is the difference between an AI strategy consultant and an AI implementation consultant?
- A strategy consultant writes the plan, and an implementation consultant puts systems in place. At a company of a few hundred people the two are often bought separately, and most plans stall in the handoff between them. Goal Boss does both, one function at a time.
- Does Goal Boss build AI systems or sell software?
- Both routes are open and Goal Boss sells no product of its own. Where a product already does the job, the company buys it and Goal Boss integrates it. Where none does, Goal Boss builds the system. Goal Boss takes no commission from any vendor.
- Who owns a system Goal Boss builds?
- The company owns every system Goal Boss builds for it, including the code repository and the documentation. Afterwards it can take a maintenance contract with Goal Boss, use another vendor Goal Boss recommends, or have its own team maintain the system after Goal Boss trains them on it.
- How is company data handled?
- A system runs in the company's own environment unless the company asks otherwise, and client data never trains a model. A confidentiality agreement is signed before any data changes hands. Goal Boss builds to SOC 2 standards and penetration-tests what it builds and connects before it goes live.
- Where is Goal Boss based?
- Goal Boss is in Brookfield, Connecticut, and Will Pemble travels to the company, anywhere in the United States.
Talk to Will Pemble
Twenty minutes on the function you have in mind and what it would need to change. If AI is the wrong tool for it, you will hear that on the call.
