Fractional AI Operator

Your company gets working AI systems next week. Not a roadmap next quarter.

I embed with your team as a fractional AI innovation lead. I assess your workflows, build real agents and automation, deploy them into your operations, and stay until they're running and dialed. $10k/month, ongoing.

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01 / Is This You

Talk to me if this sounds familiar.

Your team has experimented with AI tools, but nothing is wired into actual workflows. It's still copy-paste from ChatGPT.
You know AI should be saving real hours and creating leverage — but you don't have someone who can build that infrastructure.
You've talked to consultants who left you with recommendations but no running systems.
You need a senior technical builder, but hiring a full-time AI lead doesn't make sense yet.
You want someone who's done this before — for themselves, not just for a slide deck.

If you're nodding at two or more of these, we should talk.

02 / What Happens When I Start

I don't spend months planning. Here's what the first engagement actually looks like.

This isn't a phased consulting roadmap. It's how I work — fast, embedded, building from day one.

Days 1–3

Workflow Immersion

I learn your business the way a new team member would — by watching how work actually moves. I sit with your team, map the real workflows (not the org chart version), and identify where AI creates the most leverage with the least disruption.

Days 4–7

First System Live

I build and deploy the first AI system — typically a workflow agent or automation that addresses the highest-impact bottleneck from the immersion. Not a prototype. A working system, running in your team's actual tools.

Weeks 2–4

Expand & Onboard

I build the next layer of systems while training your team to work alongside what's already running. Agents get smarter, workflows get tighter, and your people start seeing AI as a teammate — not a tool they have to figure out.

Month 2+

Embedded Operations

I'm part of the team. I iterate on what's deployed, build new systems as opportunities surface, and progressively hand capability to your people. The goal is an AI-native team — not permanent dependency on me.

03 / What Gets Built

Real systems, not slide decks.

Every engagement is different because every business is different. Here's the kind of infrastructure I build.

AI Teammates

Specialized agents that handle real work — research, outreach, content, intake, data processing — with persistent context and capabilities that improve over time.

Workflow Automation

Processes that used to take a person half a day, running autonomously. Triage, routing, reporting, prep work — wired directly into the tools your team already uses.

Agent Orchestration

Multi-agent systems where AI teammates coordinate, hand work to each other, and maintain shared state. Not isolated chatbots — a coordinated operating layer.

Team AI Fluency

Your people learn to work alongside AI — not from a training deck, but by using systems I build for their specific roles. Fluency through doing, not slides.

04 / Proof of Work

I built my own company this way first.

Everything I'd build for you, I've already built and pressure-tested in my own business. This isn't a service I designed — it's how I operate every day.

52+
AI systems in production
Specialized agents handling sales pipeline, content, research, client prep, and daily operations — each with versioned instructions and persistent context.
Auto
Autonomous daily operations
Self-evolving daily briefs, pipeline orchestration across multiple stages, and AI agents that coordinate via shared state management.
Solo
One person, full output
I run a multi-service business as a solo operator. AI systems handle the work that would otherwise require a team. That's the leverage I build for clients.

My sales pipeline has AI systems named Scout, Relay, Build Prep, and Closer — each handling a stage of client acquisition with handoff protocols between them. They share a single source of truth for pipeline state and coordinate autonomously.

My daily brief system runs on GitHub Actions and the Anthropic API. It self-evolves its own prompts based on what I engage with and delivers cognitive continuity every morning — no manual curation.

This isn't hypothetical infrastructure. It's running right now, every day, in a real business generating real revenue. When I say I'll build AI systems that work — I mean the same class of systems I depend on myself.

The difference between me and a consultant: if what I build breaks, it breaks my business too. That's why it works.

05 / Background
Darren Buckner

20 years of building.

I'm a full-stack engineer turned AI systems architect. I've been shipping software across startups and enterprise for two decades — Shopzilla, the NFL, my own companies. I co-founded Workfrom and went through Techstars in 2020.

Now I build AI infrastructure full-time. Not as a side interest — as the core of how I run my business and how I help others run theirs. I speak at conferences on AI teaming because I think most companies are approaching this wrong, and I want to show a different way.

I'm based in Portland. I work with a small number of clients at a time. And I build every system I'd deploy for you in my own business first.

20 yrs
Full-stack engineering across startups and enterprise
TS '20
Co-founded Workfrom. Techstars accelerator graduate.
IRL
Speaking at conferences on AI teaming and human-AI collaboration
Daily
Running autonomous agent infrastructure in production, in my own business
06 / Ways to Work Together

Three ways in. Pick the one that fits.

Not sure where to start? The first conversation is free. I'll tell you which engagement makes sense — or if none of them do.

Start

AI Working Session

$1,000
90 minutes + follow-up

I spend 90 minutes learning how you work — your workflows, your bottlenecks, where your time actually goes. Then we find the one or two places where AI creates real leverage and build the first one together, live, using your actual work. You leave with something running, not a slide deck telling you what's possible.

Two weeks later we do a 30-minute follow-up to see what stuck, what needs adjusting, and what the next move is.

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Train

Team AI Fluency Workshop

$7,500
Half-day, hands-on

A working session for your leadership team. Not slides about AI — hands-on building with real workflows. Everyone leaves with a working AI system for their role and a framework for progressive AI adoption.

Full-day sessions with live AI teammate builds available at $12,500.

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Also available: Ongoing AI Advisory for founders and technical leaders who want strategic guidance without the build. $5,000/month. Ask me about it.

Stop planning. Start building.

30-minute conversation. No pitch deck, no pressure. Just a real talk about what AI leverage looks like for your specific business.

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