David Kennedy serves as your organization's embedded AI executive 1–2 days per week. Strategy, governance, vendor oversight, board reporting, and adoption accountability — all handled personally at the principal level.
The median base salary for a Chief AI Officer is $353,000 in 2026. Loaded with bonus, benefits, and team-build cost, the first-year investment exceeds $1.5M. And the talent market for experienced CAIOs is among the most competitive in the country.
Middle-market companies need the function a CAIO provides — AI strategy, vendor governance, use-case prioritization, board reporting — but not the overhead of a full-time executive role. That's the Fractional CAIO model.
The CFO was fielding questions from the board about AI risk exposure and strategy at every quarterly meeting. The answer was always "our IT team is looking at it" — which was not satisfying. The company needed a named executive owner who could give the board a credible answer.
Six months into the Fractional CAIO engagement, the company had an approved AI governance framework, a prioritized use-case roadmap with ROI projections, three vendor contracts renegotiated, and a quarterly board AI briefing that the board chair described as "the clearest AI reporting I've seen from any portfolio company."