AI transformation that ends in production, measured every month
We put AI to work in your operations, one workflow at a time. Month 1 sets the numbers that define success. Then a dedicated team ships every two weeks, in your cloud or on your servers, and reports the value each month.
- In-house IT or data team?Our engineers and scientists work under your technical lead, in your repositories and CI/CD. Ask for a technical call
- Enterprise business unit?Run a one-workflow pilot through your existing SI or prime, under their contract and security review, with the evaluation criteria fixed before you sign.
- SI, consultancy or reseller?We deliver under your brand and your contract. Book a partner call
- Regulated workflow?Nothing goes live until your QA signs off, and discovery can be scoped to your validation path.
AI transformation
in 30 seconds
Who it’s for
Established businesses with a costly workflow that repeats: claims, invoicing, reporting, document intake, inspection or catalog work.
What you get
A dedicated team that puts one workflow at a time into production in your environment, measured against numbers agreed in month 1.
How it starts
A free 30-minute fit call that scores one workflow for readiness, with the written result within 72 hours.
What it costs
From €5,500£5,100$6,500 a month for one workstream on a 12-month term, discovery included. Terms are 3, 6 or 12 months, followed by a 30-day notice period.
Not ready to subscribe? Discovery only, from €5,000£4,700$6,000: 2–4 weeks, ending in a roadmap you keep.
Where it pays off first
and where it doesn’t
A good fit
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Established businesses with operating data and a workflow that repeats every day and costs real money.
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Operations, finance and service teams buried in claims, invoices, reports or documents.
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IT or data teams that need more hands, production experience or scientific depth for one project.
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Enterprise units buying through an SI or prime, and partners who need senior AI capacity.
Probably not a fit
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Start-ups whose AI is the product they are building.
CTO as a Service fits that better.
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A fixed price for a fixed scope.
AI work changes once it meets your data.
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Free architecture before you decide.
Architecture happens in discovery, where you own the result.
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A strategy deck with nothing built.
Every step ends in something running or signed off.
How does an AI transformation run? The Check-to-Run method
We run every engagement with our Check-to-Run method: five steps called Check, Scope, Build, Prove and Run. The check is free. Scope is month 1 of the subscription and ends in a 90-day roadmap. Then the team builds in small milestones, proves each one against the agreed numbers and runs what works.
- 01CheckFit call · free
We score one workflow on value, data, ownership, skills and risk.
You keep: a written result within 72 hours, even when the honest answer is “wait” or “build it yourselves”.
- 02ScopeMonth 1 · included
We map the workflow with your people, audit its data and systems, and agree on acceptance criteria.
You keep: a 90-day roadmap of milestones and workstreams.
- 03BuildFrom month 2
A dedicated team builds in your cloud or on your servers and demos every two weeks.
You keep: working software, tests and documentation in your repositories.
- 04ProveEvery milestone
Each milestone is measured on your data. Nothing goes live until you sign off on data, security and human oversight.
You keep: an evaluation report and your go-live decision.
- 05RunMonthly · quarterly review
We monitor and retrain, extend to the next workflow, or hand over with runbooks.
You keep: a monthly value report and a quarterly go/no-go.
What the monthly value report shows
Included in every subscription and written for your management and finance lead. It is a report, not software you have to buy.
| Planned value | The numbers agreed in discovery: hours, errors, cost per case. |
|---|---|
| Achieved value | What the workflow delivered this month, measured on your data. |
| Running costs | Model tokens, licences and infrastructure. |
| Net value | Achieved value minus running costs. |
| Next month | Planned milestones, risks and the decisions we need from you. |
What does month 1 deliver?
Month 1 is discovery, and it is included in every subscription. By the end of it you have a map of the workflow, an audit of its data and systems, the architecture, the acceptance criteria your sign-off will use, a risk register and a 90-day roadmap. Building starts in month 2.
- Workflow map: who does what today, and where time and errors go.
- Data and systems audit: what exists, what is missing, what must stay put.
- Acceptance criteria: accuracy, time saved, error rate, cost per case.
- Risk register: data protection, security, human oversight.
- 90-day roadmap: a plan, not a delivery date.
Not ready to subscribe? Discovery only delivers the same in 2–4 weeks for a fixed fee.
What does an AI transformation subscription cost?
An AI transformation subscription starts from €5,500£5,100$6,500 a month for one workstream on a 12-month term, with discovery included in month 1. Two or four parallel workstreams are quoted after discovery. Discovery only costs from €5,000£4,700$6,000. Terms are 3, 6 or 12 months, followed by a 30-day notice period.
| Package detail | Workflow | Function | Program |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parallel workstreams | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Delivery capacity | 160 story points a month | 320 story points a month | 640 story points a month |
| Best for | One costly workflow, such as claims, reporting, invoicing or document intake | Several workflows in one function, such as finance operations or customer service | AI across functions, with the roadmap re-planned each quarter |
| Price | from €5,500£5,100$6,500a month | quoted after discoveryon the same basis | quoted after discoveryon the same basis |
Included in every subscription: discovery in month 1, a monthly value report net of running costs, an approval gate before anything goes live, and training with named champions for each release.
Prices exclude VAT where it applies. The starting price is for a 12-month term; 3- and 6-month terms are quoted in the fit call.
Each workstream carries one item at a time, such as a model, an integration or a data pipeline, staffed by the senior engineers and scientists it needs. It delivers 160 story points a month, the unit we use to size and track delivered work. It is capacity, not one full-time engineer.
We also deliver under our partners’ brands and contracts. Book a partner call
AI Transformation or CTO as a Service?
Same starting price, different buyers.
| Compared on | AI Transformation | CTO as a Service |
|---|---|---|
| You are | An established business improving its operations | A company building a software or AI product |
| Who leads | Your management; our lead engineer runs the delivery | A named fractional CTO from our team |
| First result | One workflow in production, measured in the value report | A technical assessment and a product roadmap |
| Also included | Readiness check, value report, approval gate, training | Fractional CTO, plus hiring and investor support |
What results have our AI systems delivered?
Our clients measure results in hours saved, errors removed and work processed without a person touching it. The five projects below are published case studies that name the team, the timeline and the technology. Each figure is quoted from its case page.
| Client | What we built | Result |
|---|---|---|
| US healthcare data analytics company | Engine that normalizes drug codes for rebate claims, with a human-review queue | 83% of raw claims automatically converted into a unified, rebate-eligible format; 17% of raw claims automatically flagged for human review |
| NHCA, a post-acute healthcare network in 6 US states | Central data warehouse and automated financial reporting | 50% faster reporting cycles; 1,000+ employee hours saved annually; 45% reduction in invoice/payment delays |
| Gentherm, automotive tier-1 supplier | Computer-vision inspection reworked after a line and lighting redesign | Fewer false positives, the ±1.5 mm tolerance held and the cycle time unchanged; validated on the live line |
| Corporate gifting e-commerce platform | AI catalog pipeline: duplicate detection, image tagging and generated descriptions | >45% less manual catalog work; 3× faster product onboarding |
| Industrial inspection company, USA | Corrosion detection on drone imagery, feeding a digital-twin platform | 99% detection accuracy for rust vs. non-rust surfaces; 60% reduced manual inspection cost |
Delivery in these projects ran from 6 to 55 weeks, depending on scope.
What clients say about our delivery
Rated 5.0 on Clutch from 22 verified reviews.
The team surpassed expectations on timelines, provided much needed guidance and overall input on design, all while operating with a high degree of autonomy.
Carl Kaub
Vice President of Chemistry at HTG Molecular DiagnosticBlackthorn.ai is great at adapting to our needs; it’s not easy to work with us as a critical infrastructure provider because we have many restrictions that make it difficult to work with data since it has to be secured.
Under NDA
Deputy, Surgical CenterThe team showed initiative and proactiveness in developing alternative solutions to reach our goals. As a result, we obtained very complex and high-quality support.
Under NDA
CEO, Chemistry Solutions CompanyI was impressed by their reliable delivery and high quality of work.
Dariya Yepikhina
Head of E-Commerce, ULTRA MODA LLC.Thanks to their open management style, they had an exceptional partnership that resulted in success.
Serhii Ivanets
CTO, VAN GroupThe most impressive and unique about this company was their exceptional commitment to customer satisfaction.
Serge H
Head of Partnerships of Software Development CompanyThe team surpassed expectations on timelines, provided much needed guidance and overall input on design, all while operating with a high degree of autonomy.
Carl Kaub
Vice President of Chemistry at HTG Molecular DiagnosticBlackthorn.ai is great at adapting to our needs; it’s not easy to work with us as a critical infrastructure provider because we have many restrictions that make it difficult to work with data since it has to be secured.
Under NDA
Deputy, Surgical CenterThe team showed initiative and proactiveness in developing alternative solutions to reach our goals. As a result, we obtained very complex and high-quality support.
Under NDA
CEO, Chemistry Solutions CompanyI was impressed by their reliable delivery and high quality of work.
Dariya Yepikhina
Head of E-Commerce, ULTRA MODA LLC.Thanks to their open management style, they had an exceptional partnership that resulted in success.
Serhii Ivanets
CTO, VAN GroupThe most impressive and unique about this company was their exceptional commitment to customer satisfaction.
Serge H
Head of Partnerships of Software Development CompanyWhy choose Blackthorn AI as your AI transformation partner?
Choose us if you want senior scientists and engineers who build what they recommend, discovery included in month 1, value reported net of running costs, and controls from the first release. We work in your environment under your rules, and you can change the roadmap every quarter or stop.
- People: senior scientists and engineers lead every engagement.
- Value you can check: achieved against planned value, net of tokens, licences and infrastructure.
- Controls from the first release: evaluation sets, monitoring, role-based access, audit logs and human review.
- Your environment: your cloud or your servers, with access granted per named person.
- Evidence for regulated work, mapped to the NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001 and the EU AI Act. Mapping is not certification.
AI transformation partner, strategy firm, in-house hire or dev shop: how do they compare?
The four common ways to start differ most in what you hold at the end. A strategy firm leaves a plan, a new hire adds one person’s skills, and a dev shop builds to your specification. A transformation partner should leave a working, measured system that your team owns.
| Compared on | Blackthorn AI subscription | Big-4 or strategy firm | In-house AI hire | Typical dev shop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you hold at the end | A running system, its evaluation report and documentation | A strategy and roadmap; the build is a separate project | One specialist who still needs data, MLOps and validation support | Software built to your specification |
| First commitment | A free readiness check, then from €5,500£5,100$6,500 a month with discovery included | Assessments commonly from about $25,000; broad enterprise strategy work $500,000 or more | A senior ML or AI engineer in Germany earns roughly €85,000–145,000 a year before employer costs | Often a free estimate, then hourly billing |
| Skills on day one | Scientists plus ML, data, MLOps and QA engineers | Strategy consultants; engineering often through partners | One person’s skills | Engineering; science and validation rarely included |
| Controls and evidence | Evaluation, monitoring and human review from the first release | Governance policies and frameworks | Only if you also hire for it | Rarely in scope |
| If it doesn’t work out | Stop at the quarterly review or when a term ends; code and models are already in your accounts | You keep the deck | Notice periods, severance and months lost | Sunk cost, and code quality varies |
Sources: Master of Code, “How much do AI consulting services cost?”, checked 6 November 2026 (page); Turing College, AI engineer salaries in Germany, 2026 (page).
Who does the work?
A dedicated team of senior engineers and scientists from Blackthorn AI, sized by the number of parallel workstreams. A lead engineer runs the delivery with your people, and our scientific bench joins when a workflow needs research-grade modeling, statistics or validation.
The bench includes Alex Gurbych, PhD, CEO; Natalya Shakhovska, DrSci, Prof., Chief Scientific Officer; Serhiy Protsenko, DrSci, Prof., Principal Data Scientist; Dmytro Krasnienkov, PhD, Principal Scientist, Bioinformatics; and Ivan Izonin, PhD, DrSci, Assoc. Prof., Scientific Advisor, Artificial Intelligence. Meet the team
- Your repository and CI/CD, with every person’s access granted by you.
- Evaluation and monitoring ship with the first release, not after go-live.
- Owners on your side: champions are trained with each release, so the system has owners when we step back.
More AI systems in production
01What is AI transformation?
The move from AI experiments to AI systems that run real workflows in production, owned by the company, measured against agreed numbers and documented well enough to check. It usually starts with one workflow, not a company-wide program.
02Why do so many AI projects stall before production?
Most stall between the pilot and production. A pilot shows that a model can work, but production also needs clean data, a security review, integration, monitoring and someone accountable for the result. In our projects the blockers are a workflow nobody owns, scattered data and no shared definition of ready, and discovery in month 1 fixes all three.
03What does an AI transformation consultant do?
An AI transformation consultant picks the workflows where AI will pay off, checks whether the data and the team are ready, and plans the change. At Blackthorn AI the same team then builds, proves and runs the system.
04How much does AI transformation consulting cost?
AI consulting is commonly quoted from about $25,000 for a focused assessment to $500,000 or more for an enterprise strategy. Our subscription starts at €5,500 a month for Europe, £5,100 for the UK and $6,500 for other regions on a 12-month term, with discovery included in month 1. One workstream delivers 160 story points a month. Discovery only starts from €5,000, £4,700 or $6,000.
05How long does an AI transformation take?
Our published projects ran from 6 weeks (an inspection update for an automotive supplier) to 55 weeks (a reporting platform for a healthcare network in six US states). A company-wide change is a series of these, one workflow at a time.
06Can we start with a pilot?
Yes. Take a 3-month first term on one workflow. The quarterly review is your go/no-go: continue, change course, or stop with 30 days’ notice. The code, models and documentation are already in your accounts when you decide.
07What is an AI readiness assessment?
A check of whether a workflow, its data, its owners, the skills around it and its risks are ready for AI before you invest. Ours is free: we score one workflow in a 30-minute fit call and send the written result within 72 hours.
08Should we hire an in-house AI team or work with a partner?
Hire when AI is your core product. Work with a partner when AI runs a workflow inside a business that already earns money and you need several skills now. Many companies do both: a partner builds the first workflows, then hands them to the internal team.
09Do you build AI systems for a fixed price?
No. AI work changes once it meets your data, so we deliver small milestones on a monthly subscription and accept each one against numbers agreed in discovery. Discovery only is the one fixed-fee option.
10Can we buy through our SI, consultancy or reseller?
Yes. We deliver under partners’ brands and contracts, and enterprise pilots often run through the client’s existing SI or prime, under its security review. Partners can book a call with us to discuss terms.
Start with one workflow and a 30-minute call
Tell us which workflow costs you the most today. We score it for readiness on the call and send the written result within 72 hours.