Most mid-market AI projects
die in exploration.
Yours won't.
I help 50–500 person companies ship their first production AI system in 4–8 weeks — without burning a quarter on proof-of-concepts that never see real users.
Free 30-min call. No pitch deck. We map your situation and decide if there's a fit.
The mid-market AI trap
You've seen this play out — maybe in your own company.
The 6-month vacuum
Leadership commits to "doing something with AI." Six months later: three Notion docs, two abandoned prototypes, one ChatGPT API key billed to engineering. Nothing in production. Nothing measurable.
The architect gap
Your engineers can build features. They can't unilaterally decide whether to fine-tune, use RAG, pick Bedrock vs OpenAI, or handle data governance. That's an architect-level decision — and you don't have one in-house.
The vendor maze
Twelve vendors, all claiming to be "AI for your industry." Half are GPT wrappers. The other half want six-figure annual commitments. No neutral expert in the room to call it.
The compliance wall
Your data can't leave the perimeter. Banking secrecy laws, financial regulators, internal security policy — most AI vendors assume cloud LLMs are fine. They're not, for half of mid-market reality. You need someone who's actually shipped on-prem RAG, not someone who only read about it.
I've seen these patterns across 15 years of cloud architecture and dozens of AI engagements. The way out is structured — not magical.
Three ways to work together
Pick the one that matches where you are.
AI Readiness Assessment
For companies that know AI matters but don't know where to start — or have started and gotten lost.
What's included
- → 4 stakeholder interviews (CEO, CTO, ops, data lead)
- → Current-state audit: tech stack, data readiness, team capabilities
- → 5–10 prioritized AI use cases with ROI estimates
- → 6-month implementation roadmap
- → 90-min presentation to leadership
- → Written assessment (25–35 pages)
Outcome
AI Pilot Implementation
For companies that picked a use case and need it shipped right the first time — production-grade, not a Jupyter notebook demo.
Common pilots I've architected
- → On-prem RAG / GraphRAG for regulated data (banking, mortgage, finance — no data leaves your perimeter)
- → RAG-based internal knowledge assistant (over your docs, code, tickets)
- → Document processing automation (OCR + LLM extraction at scale)
- → Customer support copilot with handoff logic
- → AI-powered search over corporate data
What's included
- → Architecture and tech stack design
- → Vendor and model selection
- → Hands-on implementation alongside your team
- → Production deployment — AWS Bedrock for cloud workloads, or fully on-prem (Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM) for regulated data
- → Team training to own it after I leave
- → 30-day post-launch support
Outcome
Fractional AI Advisor
For companies that need a senior AI strategist on call — but don't need (or can't justify) a full-time hire at $300k+.
What's included
- → Weekly 1-hour strategy call
- → Slack access during business hours
- → Architecture and vendor decision reviews
- → Hiring support for AI/ML engineers
- → Quarterly roadmap updates
- → Direct access for ad-hoc questions
Capped at 4 active retainer clients. Currently 1 slot open.
Independent. Hands-on. Small roster by design.
I spent 15 years as a Solutions Architect — most recently at DataArt, where I led cloud and AI projects across fintech, banking, and SaaS. I've shipped both cloud-native AI on AWS Bedrock and fully on-prem RAG systems where regulatory constraints don't allow data to leave the perimeter.
Along the way, I wrote 13 books on AWS and cloud infrastructure. Not because I planned to be an author — because every time I solved a hard problem, I couldn't find the playbook I needed. So I wrote it.
That's the same instinct I bring to advisory work: when a mid-market team is stuck on AI, I don't hand them a strategy deck. I help them ship.
I run an independent practice now — small client roster by design, so each engagement gets real attention. Based in Yerevan, working with clients globally.
Author of 13 books on cloud architecture and AI
Playbooks from the trenches — written while solving real problems for real clients.
Stuck on AI? Let's untangle it.
30 minutes. No pitch deck. We map where you are and figure out if there's a way I can help.
If not — I'll point you to someone who can.
Or email directly: SourenStepanyan@gmail.com