Advisor
From $2,500 /mo
~4 hrs/mo
Monthly AI leadership check-in plus advisory access.
- Monthly 1:1 with your Fractional CAIO
- Email and chat advisory access
- Light-touch AI policy and risk reviews
- AI vendor and contract sanity checks
Fractional Chief AI Officer (CAIO) Services
On this page
Senior AI leadership for Australian businesses, on a monthly retainer instead of a full-time hire.
What we do
AI decisions are arriving faster than most leadership teams can absorb. Whether to roll out Copilot. Whether to let the team use ChatGPT for client work. Whether to sign a three-year contract with the AI vendor your competitor just adopted. Whether the AI policy you do not yet have should exist before or after the pilot you are already running.
InnovateX provides Fractional Chief AI Officer services for Australian SMB and mid-market organisations (20 to 200 staff). On a monthly retainer, we become your AI-domain executive. We set the AI strategy, own AI governance, manage AI vendors, and make the calls you need someone in your corner to make. We sit alongside your existing IT leadership rather than replacing it.
AI Strategy & Charter
Where AI fits in your business, where it does not, who owns what, and what you are deliberately choosing not to do this year.
AI Governance & Risk
AI policy, AI risk register, model and vendor risk assessment, and governance papers your board will actually read. Aligned to ISO/IEC 42001 and the Voluntary AI Safety Standard.
AI Literacy for Leadership
Boards, exec teams, and managers learning what AI can and cannot do for them specifically. Not generic vendor training, not theatre.
Responsible AI for Regulated Sectors
Privacy Act obligations, professional duties for legal, accounting, and healthcare-adjacent work, data residency, and audit-trail design built into the AI you ship.
AI Vendor & Tool Selection
Independent guidance on Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Gemini, ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude for Work, and custom builds. No vendor commissions, ever.
Board & Executive AI Reporting
AI inventory, value capture metrics, risk posture, and incident reporting structured for board consumption, not engineering review.
When you need a CAIO vs a CIO or CTO
A Fractional CIO/CTO covers the full technology agenda. A Fractional CAIO is AI-specific and goes much deeper on AI strategy, governance, and vendor selection. Most SMBs need one or the other. Some run both.
You probably need a CAIO when
- AI is the dominant tech topic at every board or leadership meeting
- You are about to make (or have just made) a multi-year AI vendor commitment
- Your team is already using AI tools you did not formally approve
- A regulator, client, or insurer has started asking AI-related questions in their assurance process
- Your industry has specific AI risk (legal, accounting, education, healthcare-adjacent, government)
You probably need a CIO or CTO when
- Tech-as-a-whole is the issue, not AI specifically
- You need governance, vendor leadership, and roadmap ownership across the full stack
- AI is one of several priorities competing for attention
If you are not sure, our Fractional CIO/CTO page covers the broader retainer. The discovery call will surface which lens fits, and many clients eventually run both.
Choose the cadence that fits
Three named retainer tiers plus a custom option for complex programs. All retainers are rolling monthly with a 30-day notice period. We want to earn your business every month.
Partner
From $4,500 /mo
~8 hrs/mo
Monthly cadence with quarterly board prep and AI roadmap reviews.
- Everything in Advisor
- Quarterly board / leadership team AI pack
- Active AI roadmap ownership
- AI vendor and budget oversight
- AI governance posture reviews
Embedded
From $8,500 /mo
~16+ hrs/mo
Weekly cadence with execution oversight on active AI programs.
- Everything in Partner
- Weekly AI leadership cadence
- Execution oversight on active AI programs
- Direct AI vendor and supplier engagement
- Board attendance on request
Custom Enterprise
Custom
scope-based
Multi-entity AI programs, regulator engagement, or sector-specific scope.
- Bespoke retainer and SLA
- Multi-entity / group AI governance
- Regulator and sector body engagement
- Program-level AI transformation oversight
Pricing matches our Fractional CIO/CTO tiers, which makes bundling straightforward. You can run a CAIO and a CIO/CTO retainer side-by-side at the same tier, or split a single tier across both. We work it out during scoping rather than productising it as a fixed package.
How an engagement runs
Built for organisations that need clarity fast on AI and steady leadership over time. The first month establishes the AI inventory and the charter. The rest of the engagement is steady cadence with quarterly reviews.
01
Discovery Call
A free 30-minute conversation to understand your business, the AI decisions you are facing, and whether a Fractional CAIO is the right shape for the next 12 months.
02
Onboarding & AI Inventory
In the first two weeks we catalogue every AI tool already in use (sanctioned and unsanctioned), every AI vendor under contract, and every workflow with AI in the loop. You get a written shadow-AI report.
03
AI Charter & Roadmap
We agree your AI ambition, acceptable-use boundaries, governance posture, and a 12-month AI roadmap. If you do not have an AI policy yet, we write one with you.
04
Ongoing Leadership
We work alongside you on a monthly, fortnightly, or weekly cadence depending on your tier. Quarterly board pack, continuous incident response, and roadmap reviews built in.
Why teams choose us
Senior AI leadership without the platform politics. Australian SMB and mid-market focus. Frameworks applied pragmatically, not as box-ticking.
You get the founder, not a sales rep
Every CAIO engagement is run by our principal. No discovery handoff to a junior delivery team after the contract is signed.
No vendor commissions, ever
We do not take referral fees from Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, or any AI platform. The advice you get is based on what is right for your business.
Governance led, not hype led
We will talk you out of AI when it is the wrong tool. A clearer process, a Power Automate flow, or a 30-line script is often the right answer.
Australian regulatory fluency
ISO/IEC 42001, the Voluntary AI Safety Standard, and Privacy Act obligations are baseline knowledge in this practice, not premium consulting.
Who you’ll work with
Senior, hands-on AI leadership for every Fractional CAIO engagement. No discovery handoff to a junior delivery team after the contract is signed.
Todd Johnson
Founder & Principal Consultant
Leads every Fractional CAIO engagement at InnovateX. More than a decade across enterprise architecture, technology strategy, and AI architecture for Australian businesses and government clients, with day-to-day focus on AI governance, board reporting, and pragmatic AI vendor selection. Founder of InnovateX Solutions and author of the XAF Connected Architecture framework.
Edwin Ashdown
AI Consultant
Brought into CAIO engagements to help clients deploy AI agents safely, without the governance gap that derails most rollouts. Scoped credentials, audit trails, and revocation built in from day one. Founder of AgentValet (agent identity and credential governance) and AI First Partner, an Anthropic partner practice.
Industries we work with
Frequently asked questions
A CAIO owns the AI agenda at executive level. AI strategy, AI policy, AI risk, AI vendor selection, AI literacy across the leadership team, and board reporting on all of it. SMBs need one when AI decisions are arriving faster than the existing leadership can adjudicate them, and when getting those decisions wrong carries regulatory, reputational, or financial cost. If AI is a once-a-year conversation for your business, you do not need a CAIO. If it is a weekly one, you do.
The CIO/CTO retainer covers the full technology agenda. Strategy, governance, vendors, architecture, cyber, and AI as one component. The CAIO retainer is AI-specific and goes much deeper on AI governance, AI risk, AI literacy, and AI vendor selection. Most SMBs need one or the other. Some larger or more AI-heavy organisations run both side-by-side. We will help you pick during the discovery call.
Automation & AI is delivery work. We build the Copilot pilot, design the Power Automate flow, harden your tenant, or stand up a Copilot Studio agent. The CAIO retainer is executive leadership above that work. Strategy, governance, policy, risk, and reporting. Many engagements blend the two. The CAIO sets the direction and the guardrails; the delivery team builds inside them.
Most of our clients do not have one at the start. Onboarding includes a shadow-AI inventory (what your team is already using) and the first draft of an acceptable-use policy you can actually enforce. The policy gets refined alongside your AI roadmap, not written in a vacuum before any of the strategy work is done.
It is for any business where AI is now a board-level question. That includes professional services firms wondering whether to use AI for client work, early learning providers thinking about AI in education tooling, NFPs handling sensitive data, and government suppliers needing AI assurance. You do not need to be building AI products to need AI leadership.
The Voluntary AI Safety Standard is voluntary today, and ISO/IEC 42001 certification is optional. Both are increasingly being asked about in procurement, tender responses, and supplier assurance processes. We use them as design references for governance work rather than as compliance gates. If your buyers, regulators, or insurers start asking, you will already be in the right shape.
Yes, and this is common. The two retainers stay in their lanes (AI scope vs everything-else scope) and meet at the quarterly review. If you already have a Fractional CIO/CTO from us, adding CAIO scope is a conversation, not a re-procurement.
Most engagements begin within two weeks of the discovery call. We are based in Brisbane and work with clients Australia-wide, mostly remote with onsite days arranged for board meetings, leadership offsites, or critical sessions.
Our sweet spot is 20 to 200 staff Australian businesses with annual revenue between $5M and $100M. We have worked with smaller and larger, but this is where Fractional AI leadership delivers the highest return.
Ready to add senior AI leadership to your team?
A free 30-minute discovery call. We will discuss the AI decisions on your plate right now and whether a Fractional Chief AI Officer is the right shape for the next 12 months.
Free initial consult
Talk to us about Fractional Chief AI Officer (CAIO) Services
A 30-minute call. We listen, ask the right questions, and tell you whether we are the right fit.