Will your consulting engagement just be a sales pitch for a massive AI development project?

No. SumatoSoft is a dual-engine engineering firm, so our consulting stays objective. If the audit shows your bottleneck is better solved with traditional, deterministic software, such as a standard ERP upgrade or data modernization, we will tell you. We don't push AI where a traditional Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is the safer, more cost-effective choice.

Our company data is siloed and a bit of a mess. Is it too early for us to engage in AI Consulting?

This is actually the perfect time to engage. The #1 reason AI projects fail is that companies try to build models on top of fragmented data. Our first step is always an AI Readiness Assessment. If your data isn't ready for Generative AI or Agentic workflows, we will provide a pragmatic "Data Modernization Blueprint" to help you centralize and clean your infrastructure first.

Is your AI consulting an open-ended, hourly engagement?

No. Executives need financial predictability, so our core services, such as the AI Viability Audit and the ROI Discovery Sprint, are time-boxed (typically 2 to 4 weeks) and fixed-price. You know exactly what the engagement costs and exactly what you will receive on day one.

What exactly do we receive at the end of the consulting engagement?

Not a theoretical slide deck. You get an actionable Executive AI Blueprint. Depending on the engagement, it includes a list of AI use cases ranked by fastest return, a detailed cloud architecture and security schematic that shows how to keep your data out of public models, a cost-per-token hosting projection, and a fixed-price proposal to build a 4-week proof of concept (PoC) using our Agentic Development Lifecycle (ADLC).

How do you handle our proprietary data during the consulting and auditing phase?

Security starts on day one, not just during development. We work under strict NDAs and ISO 27001-certified processes. During the technical audit, we evaluate your data architecture, APIs, and infrastructure flow. We don't need to extract, copy, or ingest your sensitive raw data or personal information (PII) to design your secure AI blueprint.

What is AI consulting, and when does a business need it?

AI consulting is expert guidance on where and how to apply AI to a real business problem, before you commit to building anything. A good engagement audits your data, infrastructure, and workflows. It identifies the use cases with the clearest ROI and produces a cost roadmap to production. You need it when the opportunity is unclear, when a pilot has stalled, or when you want a defensible business case before spending on development. At SumatoSoft, every engagement is fixed-price and time-boxed, and it ends with a roadmap you can act on, not a slide deck.

How do you choose an AI consulting company?

Ask whether the consultant also builds what they recommend. Advice from a team that has shipped AI to production survives contact with real data; advice from a pure strategy shop often doesn't. Check that they're vendor-neutral, so the recommended stack fits your data and total cost, not their partnerships. Confirm the engagement is fixed-price and time-boxed, so you know the cost and the deliverables on day one. And make sure they'll tell you when AI isn't the answer. A partner willing to recommend simpler software when that's the honest call is one you can trust with a bigger build.

How much does AI consulting cost?

Our consulting engagements are fixed-price and time-boxed, so you know the number before you start. A 2-week AI Viability Audit and a 3-week Use-case & ROI Discovery each fall in the low five figures. The exact number is set by the size of your data estate and how many systems are in scope. Each one ends with concrete deliverables: a readiness report, a prioritized use-case portfolio, an architecture blueprint, and a fixed-price proposal for the first proof of concept. Development is scoped separately. You can get an early estimate from our cost calculator.