Fractional AI Officer & Fractional CTO for SMEs

Your AI Department —
Without the Full-Time Cost

JBA Agency provides a Fractional AI Officer service for small and medium businesses. You get a real AI strategist and builder embedded in your company — auditing processes, shipping automations, and driving AI adoption — at 70% less than a full-time hire.

70%
Less than full-time CTO
2–4 wks
First delivery
3–5
Companies served at once
100%
Deliverable-based pricing
The Problem

The AI Gap for Small & Medium Businesses

Most SMEs know they need AI to stay competitive — but the path from "we should use AI" to "AI is running in our business" is blocked by three hard realities.

💸

They Can't Afford a CTO

A full-time Chief AI Officer or CTO costs €80,000–€120,000 per year in salary alone. For a 10–50 person company, that's simply not viable. So nothing gets built.

🤖

They Try ChatGPT and Stall

Teams experiment with AI tools but can't integrate them into real workflows. No one owns the roadmap. The experimentation phase never becomes operational adoption.

📉

Competitors Are Pulling Ahead

While SMEs wait, better-resourced competitors — or nimbler startups — are deploying AI to cut costs, respond faster, and outperform on every front.

"The companies that figure out AI in the next 24 months will have a structural cost and speed advantage that latecomers will struggle to close. For SMEs, the question is not whether to adopt AI — it's how to do it without building an expensive in-house team."

— Alex, JBA Agency

The Solution

A Fractional AI Officer — Not a Consultant. A Builder.

A Fractional AI Officer is a senior AI professional who works embedded in your business on a part-time basis — providing the strategic direction, hands-on implementation, and ongoing AI leadership that a full-time CTO would provide, but at a fraction of the cost.

At JBA Agency, Alex serves as your part-time AI department. He doesn't write strategy documents and disappear. He audits your processes, designs AI solutions tailored to your industry, builds them, and stays engaged as your ongoing AI consultant for SMEs.

Every client gets focused attention. JBA Agency works with 3 to 5 companies simultaneously — enough to bring cross-industry insight, few enough to deliver real results each month.

Embedded, not external

Alex works as part of your team — on your Slack, in your processes, aligned with your goals.

Builder, not advisor

AI solutions get shipped, not just recommended. You see working software, not reports.

Results, not hours

All pricing is deliverable-based. You pay for what gets built and deployed.

AI-amplified output

Alex uses his own AI agents to multiply execution speed — you get more done in less time.

What's Included

Four Pillars of the Fractional AI Officer Service

Every engagement follows a structured four-phase model — from discovery through ongoing impact. You always know what you're getting and what happens next.

🔍
Pillar 01

AI Audit & Opportunity Mapping

The engagement begins with a deep-dive analysis of your business: every process, workflow, team bottleneck, and data source. The output is a prioritized AI Opportunity Roadmap — a concrete list of automations and AI tools your business can implement, ranked by expected ROI and implementation effort.

  • Full process mapping and bottleneck identification
  • AI tool and technology recommendation
  • Prioritized implementation roadmap with cost and time estimates
  • Delivered as a written report within 5–7 business days
🧠
Pillar 02

AI Strategy & Solution Design

Once opportunities are mapped, the right solutions are designed. This means choosing the correct AI approach — off-the-shelf tool vs. custom build, LLM integration vs. rule-based automation — and producing technical specifications that reflect your business reality, not generic AI theory.

  • Architecture design for each AI solution
  • Technology selection (n8n, Make, LangChain, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)
  • Integration planning with your existing tools (CRM, ERP, support desk)
  • Clear success metrics defined before building begins
Pillar 03

Implementation & Development

This is where most "AI consultants" stop — and where JBA Agency begins. As your Fractional AI Officer, Alex builds the solutions. Chatbots, automation pipelines, custom AI tools, API integrations, agentic workflows — deployed in your infrastructure, tested, and handed over with documentation. Delivered in weeks, not months.

  • End-to-end build, test, and deployment
  • Automations, chatbots, custom AI tools, and integrations
  • Typical delivery: 2–4 weeks per project
  • Full documentation and handover training
🔁
Pillar 04

Ongoing AI Partnership

AI is not a one-time project — it's a compounding advantage. The monthly retainer keeps your business at the AI frontier: new implementations each month, adaptation as AI tools evolve, team training, and strategic guidance. Think of it as your part-time AI department on retainer.

  • Monthly implementation sprint (at least one new AI feature)
  • Async access to Alex (Slack, email, WhatsApp)
  • Monthly strategy review call
  • Team AI training and adoption support
The Process

How the Engagement Works

Four steps from first call to ongoing AI advantage. No long procurement cycles, no setup fees, no lock-in.

1

Free 30-Minute AI Audit Call

A focused conversation about your business: current processes, team size, biggest bottlenecks, and AI goals. This call costs nothing and carries no obligation. At the end, you'll know whether AI can meaningfully help your business — and what the highest-impact opportunities are.

2

AI Opportunity Report Delivered

Within 5–7 business days, you receive a written AI Opportunity Report — a full audit of your processes with ranked AI recommendations, estimated ROI for each, and a clear implementation roadmap. This is a €500 standalone deliverable. If you proceed with implementation, the audit cost is credited.

3

First AI Project Built & Deployed

Together, we select the highest-impact AI project from the roadmap. Alex builds it — a chatbot, automation pipeline, custom tool, or integration — and deploys it in your environment. Typical delivery: 2–4 weeks. You see results before month two.

4

Ongoing Monthly AI Retainer

After the first win, most clients move to a monthly retainer — their ongoing Fractional AI Officer relationship. Each month includes at least one new implementation, strategy review, and continuous AI guidance. You build a compounding AI advantage month by month, from €800/month.

Why JBA Agency

What Makes This Different

There are many AI consultants. There are few who build, ship fast, and stay embedded. Here's the honest comparison.

Weeks, Not Months

Enterprise AI projects take 3–6 months. JBA Agency delivers the first working AI solution in 2–4 weeks. AI-first development methodology makes this possible.

💰

70% Less Than Full-Time

A full-time CTO costs €80,000–€120,000/year. A Fractional AI Officer engagement at JBA Agency starts from €800/month — and you only pay for what gets delivered.

🎯

3–5 Clients Max

JBA Agency intentionally limits simultaneous engagements to 3–5 companies. You get genuine focused attention — not a token retainer in a book of 50 clients.

📦

Deliverable-Based Pricing

You pay for working software, not for hours. Every engagement is scoped around a concrete deliverable — defined before work begins, with a fixed price.

🔨

Builder + Advisor

Most AI consultants advise but don't build. Alex does both — strategy, architecture, and full-stack implementation. One person from idea to deployment.

🤖

AI-Powered Execution

Alex uses his own AI agent infrastructure to multiply output. The same AI-first methodology used for JBA Agency's own operations is applied to building your solutions faster.

Ideal Client

Who the Fractional AI Officer Service Is For

This service is built specifically for small and medium businesses that are ready to move from "we should use AI" to "AI is running in our business."

SMEs with 5–100 employees who need AI to stay competitive but cannot justify a full-time CTO salary of €80,000–€120,000/year.

Companies with repetitive processes — customer support, lead follow-up, document processing, scheduling — ready for automation.

Teams that tried AI tools — ChatGPT, Zapier, generic chatbots — but couldn't integrate them into real workflows that actually save time.

Startups that need technical AI leadership without committing to a €80–120K salary — a Fractional CTO giving strategic direction and building at the same time.

Operations-heavy businesses drowning in manual work — invoice processing, data entry, report generation, email triage — that AI can handle.

Companies with an existing dev team that lacks AI/ML specialization — where an embedded AI consultant for SMEs fills the strategic and technical gap.

Not a fit if:

✗ You need a full-time, on-site CTO exclusively focused on your company

✗ You want to hire someone to join your payroll (this is a service engagement)

✗ Your business has no repetitive processes and no data

✗ You need 100+ hours/month of dedicated capacity (enterprise-scale)

Use Cases

What Gets Built as Your AI Automation for Business

Concrete AI implementations delivered to real businesses — not theoretical roadmaps. Every use case below is something Alex has built or actively builds for clients.

💬 Customer Support

AI Support Chatbot

An AI chatbot trained on your product documentation, FAQs, and support history — handling 50–70% of inbound tickets automatically, 24/7, without human intervention.

Result: 60% ticket deflection, faster response times, lower support cost

📊 Sales

Lead Qualification & Follow-Up

Automated lead scoring, CRM enrichment, and AI-written follow-up email sequences triggered by lead behavior. Your sales team focuses only on qualified, ready-to-buy prospects.

Result: 3× more leads followed up, higher conversion rate

📄 Operations

Document & Invoice Automation

AI extraction from incoming invoices, contracts, and forms — automatically populating your accounting system, flagging anomalies, and routing for approval. Zero manual data entry.

Result: Hours of admin work eliminated per week

✍️ Marketing

AI Content Generation Pipeline

A structured AI pipeline that generates on-brand blog posts, social media content, email newsletters, and ad copy — reviewed by your team, published in a fraction of the time.

Result: 5× content output with same team size

👥 HR

Automated Candidate Screening

AI screening of incoming CVs against job requirements, automated initial-fit scoring, and calendar scheduling for shortlisted candidates — your HR team reviews only pre-qualified applicants.

Result: 80% reduction in CV review time per hire

📈 Finance

Automated Reporting & Anomaly Detection

Automated financial dashboards generated from your data sources on a schedule — with AI anomaly detection that flags unusual transactions, budget overruns, or cash flow risks before they become problems.

Result: Real-time financial visibility, no manual reporting

Transparent Pricing

Deliverable-Based Pricing. You Pay for What Gets Built.

No hourly billing. No vague retainers. Every engagement is scoped to a concrete deliverable with a fixed price. You know exactly what you're paying for before work begins.

🔍

AI Audit

€500
one-time
  • Full business process analysis
  • Prioritized AI Opportunity Report
  • ROI estimates per opportunity
  • Implementation roadmap + cost guide
  • Delivered in 5–7 business days
  • No obligation to proceed further
Request Audit
Most Popular

Project-Based

from €1,500
per project
  • Single AI implementation
  • Chatbot, automation, custom tool, or integration
  • Delivered in 2–4 weeks
  • Deployed in your infrastructure
  • Full documentation + handover
  • Fixed price, no hourly surprises
Discuss Project
🔁

Monthly Retainer

from €800/mo
ongoing AI Officer engagement
  • Ongoing Fractional AI Officer role
  • Monthly implementation sprint
  • Async access (Slack / WhatsApp)
  • Monthly strategy review call
  • Continuous AI roadmap management
  • No long-term lock-in
Start Retainer

Audit credit policy: If you purchase the €500 AI Audit and proceed to a project or retainer, the €500 is credited against your first invoice. The audit pays for itself.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about the Fractional AI Officer service before booking a call.

What exactly is a Fractional AI Officer?

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A Fractional AI Officer is a senior AI professional who works with your company on a part-time or fractional basis — typically a few days per month — serving as your dedicated AI department. The term "fractional" means you get the expertise of a full-time Chief AI Officer or CTO without paying a full-time salary.

At JBA Agency, Alex acts as your embedded Fractional AI Officer: he audits your processes, designs AI solutions appropriate for your industry, builds and deploys those solutions, and remains available for ongoing AI strategy. A full-time CTO doing this work would cost €80,000–€120,000 per year. The Fractional AI Officer model starts at €800/month.

How is a Fractional AI Officer different from an AI consultant?

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Traditional AI consultants deliver reports, presentations, and recommendations — but leave the implementation to you. You pay for advice; you still need to find someone to build the thing.

A Fractional AI Officer both advises and implements. Alex designs the AI solution and then builds it. The engagement is ongoing and results-focused — you pay for delivered software and automation, not for hours spent in meetings. This is the core distinction: consulting tells you what to do; the Fractional AI Officer does it.

What size company is this service designed for?

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The Fractional AI Officer service is optimized for small and medium businesses with 5 to 100 employees. These companies are large enough to have real operational processes that benefit from AI, but too small to justify a dedicated AI team or CTO salary.

Startups in the early growth stage are also a strong fit — especially those that need technical AI leadership to build product features or automate operations without hiring engineers. The service has been used by companies in professional services, e-commerce, SaaS, logistics, and retail.

What kind of AI solutions do you typically build?

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The most common implementations include:

  • → AI customer support chatbots that handle 50–70% of inbound tickets automatically
  • → Automated lead qualification and CRM enrichment pipelines
  • → Document and invoice processing automation with AI extraction
  • → AI content generation pipelines for marketing teams
  • → Automated candidate screening and HR scheduling
  • → Financial reporting automation with anomaly detection
  • → Custom internal tools that connect your existing software via AI

Every solution is tailored to the specific business. The AI Audit identifies which of these (or other) implementations will deliver the highest ROI for your company specifically.

How quickly can you deliver the first results?

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The AI Opportunity Report is delivered within 5–7 business days of the initial audit call. The first working AI implementation is typically delivered within 2–4 weeks of project start.

This is significantly faster than typical enterprise AI projects, which take 3–6 months. Speed is possible through JBA Agency's AI-first development methodology — the same AI agents that accelerate Alex's own work are used to build your solutions faster. You see a working, deployed result before the end of the first month.

Do you work with companies outside Romania?

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Yes. JBA Agency works with clients across Europe and internationally. All engagements are fully remote — no on-site presence is required. The primary working language is English. Romanian-speaking clients are also served in Romanian.

Current and past clients include businesses in Romania, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and beyond. Geographic location is no barrier to starting a Fractional AI Officer engagement.

What if I already have a development team?

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A Fractional AI Officer complements an existing development team, not replaces it. Your developers focus on your core product; Alex brings specialized AI/ML strategy and implementation capability that most generalist dev teams lack.

In practice, this means Alex can either build AI features directly, or architect the AI systems and guide your existing team's implementation. Many clients use the Fractional AI Officer to upskill their team — after a 6-month engagement, the team often has the knowledge to maintain and extend the AI systems independently.

How many companies do you work with at the same time?

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JBA Agency intentionally limits the number of simultaneous Fractional AI Officer engagements to 3 to 5 companies at any given time. This cap is deliberate and non-negotiable — it ensures every client receives meaningful progress each month, not a token check-in.

When capacity is full, new clients join a waitlist. If you're considering starting an engagement, it's worth reaching out early to check current availability.

What is included in the monthly retainer?

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The monthly Fractional AI Officer retainer starting at €800/month includes:

  • → Ongoing AI strategy and roadmap management
  • → At least one implementation sprint per month (new automation, tool, or AI feature)
  • → Async communication access via Slack, email, or WhatsApp
  • → Monthly video call for strategy review and planning
  • → Team training on AI tools as needed
  • → Access to Alex's private AI tool stack recommendations

Larger retainers (€1,500–€3,000/month) include higher implementation capacity — multiple projects per month, more complex builds, and deeper integration work. Scope is always defined at the start of each month.

Can I start with just the AI audit, no further commitment?

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Yes. The AI Audit is a fully standalone €500 engagement. You receive a complete AI Opportunity Report for your business — prioritized AI recommendations with cost estimates and expected ROI — with no obligation to proceed to implementation or a retainer.

Many clients use the audit to build an internal business case for AI investment, present to their board or investors, or simply understand what AI can realistically do for their business before committing budget. If you do proceed, the €500 audit fee is credited against your first project or retainer invoice.

What industries do you work with?

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The Fractional AI Officer service is industry-agnostic. AI automation opportunities exist in any business with processes, data, and people. Industries served include e-commerce, professional services (legal, accounting, consulting), real estate, logistics, healthcare administration, SaaS and software, retail, and hospitality.

The common thread is not the industry — it's the existence of repetitive processes, customer communication workflows, or data-heavy operations that AI can improve. The AI Audit identifies the specific opportunities in your business, regardless of sector.

What happens when the engagement ends?

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You own everything that gets built. All code, automations, configurations, and AI systems are fully documented and handed over. There is no lock-in and no proprietary dependency — the solutions run in your own infrastructure with tools you control.

After an engagement, options include: continuing with a monthly retainer, commissioning new projects on-demand, or operating independently with the AI systems built. Many clients run a 3-month intensive engagement and then move to a lighter quarterly check-in once their AI stack is established.

How do I know if my business actually needs AI?

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Your business likely needs AI if any of the following apply: your team regularly spends hours on tasks that follow a predictable pattern; customer response times are slower than you'd like because of manual handling; you generate data but don't use it to make decisions; or your competitors are operating faster with fewer people and you're not sure how.

The fastest way to find out is the free 30-minute AI audit call. In one conversation, Alex can identify whether your business has AI opportunities worth pursuing — at no cost and no obligation. If the answer is no, you'll know quickly. If yes, you'll leave with specific, actionable ideas.

Who You're Working With

Alex — Your Fractional AI Officer

Alex is the founder of JBA Agency and operates as a Fractional AI Officer for SMEs across Europe. Based in Romania, he combines software engineering, AI agent architecture, and business strategy to deliver AI solutions that actually ship.

JBA Agency runs on the "one man, infinite agents" model: Alex is the sole human operator, with a parallel network of AI agents handling execution at scale. This means the same AI-first methodology used to run JBA Agency is applied directly to your business.

As your AI consultant for SMEs, Alex's approach is direct: no account managers, no middlemen, no slide decks without substance. You speak with the person who builds your solutions from day one.

8+
Service domains covered — from AI agents to branding
3–5
Companies served as Fractional AI Officer simultaneously
2–4w
Average time from project start to deployed solution
100%
Remote — working with clients across Europe and beyond
€0
Cost for the initial 30-minute AI audit call
Currently accepting new clients — limited spots

Book Your Free
AI Audit Call

In 30 minutes, you'll know exactly where AI can save time and money in your business — and what the highest-impact first implementation would be. No sales pitch. No obligation. Just a focused conversation about your business.

Free
30-minute AI audit call
No Obligation
No commitment after the call
Fast Response
Reply within 24 business hours