The Flagship Evaluation and the Yield Optimization Retainer are not alternatives — they are sequential. The 1-Week AI Potential Evaluation produces the audit, scorecard, and 90-day roadmap. The Yield Optimization Retainer is how that roadmap actually gets executed over the following 6–24 months. Most clients begin with the Evaluation and progress into the Retainer once the CFO-Ready Performance Report quantifies the savings on the table.
The forensic audit. A CFO-Ready Performance Report and the 90-day roadmap that becomes the spec for everything after.
The operator. We execute the 90-day roadmap and run the optimised stack — compensation tied to verified P&L impact.
Most clients enter at step two — the 1-Week AI Potential Evaluation — then escalate into the multi-quarter retainer once the CFO-Ready Report quantifies the savings on the table.
For C-Suite and Tech Leadership requiring immediate clarity on their AI investments. We evaluate your existing systems — or mid-build projects — to pinpoint exactly where capital is leaking and where performance can be multiplied.
Every candidate use case in your business, plotted on a 2×2 of impact vs effort — so the leadership team can see what to ship in 30 days and what to defer.
A board-grade view of where the dollars are landing — OpEx saved, revenue uplift, throughput gains — tied to the line items in your P&L, not abstract "AI maturity" scores.
An honest read of your AI readiness across five axes — Strategy, Data, Talent, Governance, Adoption. Tells you where you actually stand and what to fix first.
Week-by-week Gantt with named owners, success criteria and CFO-validated milestones. Built so PMO, product and finance can all read the same plan.
Ranked list of every shortlisted AI use case with a composite score (impact × feasibility × speed). The team leaves knowing exactly what's #1, what's #5, and why.
A side-by-side scorecard across the 6–10 vendors in your shortlist — cost, fit, speed-to-deploy and risk — so procurement and the CTO are aligned before the contract goes out.
The six artefacts above don't appear out of a slide deck — they're produced live, day by day, with your leadership in the room. Five days on-site (or secure remote), one senior architect embedded with your team, full CFO-ready report set delivered Friday afternoon.
Live review of token spend, infrastructure utilisation, vendor contracts, and every running AI workflow — what it costs, what it returns, where it leaks. The numerical baseline for the rest of the week.
Leadership round-table to surface every candidate workflow, ranked live on the Impact × Effort matrix that becomes the AI Opportunity Map. Deep-dive interviews with each BU lead.
Side-by-side evaluation of current vendor contracts vs optimised localised alternatives. Surfaces the bloated line items and the open-source substitutions worth piloting in the next 90 days.
Joint sessions with finance to translate AI workloads into P&L lines — OpEx vs CapEx, capitalisable engineering, revenue attribution. Every shortlisted use case scored on impact × feasibility × speed; the 5-axis AI Scorecard goes on the wall.
Week-by-week execution plan with named owners and CFO-validated milestones. Full report set — Opportunity Map, Performance Report, Scorecard, Vendor Eval, Backlog and Roadmap — delivered Friday afternoon. Leadership team aligned and ready to start Monday.
A side-by-side of what we typically replace versus what we typically install. Numbers are taken from real Carion engagements — see the projects page for full case studies.
The retainer covers our dedicated senior team. The success fee only triggers on financial outcomes verified by your CFO. If the optimization doesn't move your numbers, the success portion isn't paid — full stop.
Secures the dedicated senior team — model routing, infrastructure operations, agentic tuning, monthly executive review. Sized to your stack, paid quarterly.
Every quarter we sit down with your CFO and reconcile realised OpEx reduction and revenue lift against the baseline locked at engagement start. Only verified, attributable impact counts.
A pre-agreed share of the verified P&L impact — never on theoretical projections, only on dollars that hit your books. No results = no success fee. We share the risk because we're confident in the yield.
Realistic ranges drawn from recent Carion engagements across financial services, energy, and B2B SaaS. The yield curve below traces the typical trajectory from negative ROI at engagement start to stabilised yield by Month 6. Full case studies on the Projects page.
The Immersion is built for organisations that need clarity and a plan; the Retainer is built for organisations ready to operationalise and scale.
| 1-Week AI Potential Evaluation | AI Yield Optimization Track | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Leadership teams needing a forensic audit, CFO-ready figures, and an executable 90-day plan. | Enterprises ready to execute that plan and scale the optimised architecture under continuous senior operation. |
| Duration | Five days on-site (or secure remote). Full report set delivered Friday afternoon; 90-day roadmap by end of the following week. | 6 to 24 months. Tightly scoped quarterly milestones with named CFO-validated KPIs. |
| Who's in the room | Senior Carion architect plus your C-suite + BU lead. | Dedicated senior pod (architect + ops engineer + economist) embedded with your team. |
| Headline deliverables | AI Opportunity Map · CFO-Ready Report · Executive Scorecard · Vendor & Stack Eval · Use Case Backlog · 90-Day Roadmap. | Optimised AI infrastructure in production · CFO dashboard with monthly P&L attribution · Continuous model-routing & agentic tuning. |
| Fee structure | Fixed engagement fee. | Baseline operational retainer plus a Performance Success Fee tied to the OpEx savings and revenue lift you actually realise. |
| Capacity | 12 companies per month. | Limited senior-pod availability — typically 4 active engagements at any time. |
| Outcome focus | Clarity, prioritisation, and a CFO-defensible roadmap. | Operationalised yield — measured monthly in OpEx reduction and revenue lift. |
Book a 30-minute consultation. We'll listen to where your AI investment stands today and recommend the right engagement — or honestly tell you it's not time yet.