Castle · AI Strategy, Training & Advisory

AI for companies with real work to do.

Castle helps 10–250-person teams cut through the AI hype and get real value — workshops, audits, and on-call advice. Plans your team can act on Monday morning.

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The Castle view

Most AI advice is written for companies with AI budgets. Castle is built for everyone else — the ten-to-two-hundred-person teams who need results, not research reports. We cut through the noise, separate what's real from what's marketing, and leave you with a clear path forward you can actually execute.

"I feel behind and am looking to catch up to be competitive." — NB, a Castle client on why they reached out
Services

Three ways to work with Castle.

01
Workshops & Training

The AI Fluency Workshop

For teams who keep hearing about AI but haven't figured out what to actually do with it.

Live, hands-on training built around your team's real work — not generic demos. Every Castle workshop is custom-designed for your industry, your tools, and your people. Four formats to fit where your team is today.

"I didn't know I could do that." — FG, after a Castle workshop
What's included in every workshop
  • —Pre-workshop intake call to understand your team, tools, and priorities
  • —Custom-built session tailored to your industry and workflows
  • —Live delivery, on-site in Idaho or remote anywhere else
  • —Take-home playbook: prompts, tools, and workflows specific to your team
  • —30 days of email follow-up support as the team applies what they learned
Executive Briefing
2 hours · Leadership only
$2,500

For leaders who need to make strategic decisions about AI, fast.

A focused working session with your leadership team. We cut through the noise about what AI can actually do for a business like yours right now — and, just as important, what it can't. You leave with a clear picture of where to invest, where to hold back, and why.

See what's included
What happens in the room
  • Current state of AI, translated for business leaders (no jargon)
  • Industry-specific opportunities mapped to your business model
  • Honest look at limitations, risks, and common failure modes
  • What competitors in your space are likely already doing
  • Open Q&A on any concern you've been wondering about
What you walk away with
  • A shared framework for evaluating AI opportunities as they come up
  • Prioritized short-list of areas worth exploring first
  • Shared vocabulary across leadership — future conversations move faster
  • Written session summary with specific recommendations
  • Clarity on whether to invest further, and where
Half-Day Workshop
4 hours · Single team or department
$3,500

For teams who need to start actually using AI in their daily work.

Hands-on training for one specific team — sales, marketing, operations, finance, whichever. We focus on the two or three tools that will make the biggest difference for their specific work, and spend most of the session doing real tasks together so the skills stick after we leave.

See what's included
What happens in the room
  • AI fundamentals for non-technical teams — quick, plain-language
  • Hands-on practice with the 2–3 tools most relevant to this team
  • Prompt writing basics — how to get useful output consistently
  • Live exercises on the team's actual tasks, not made-up examples
  • Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
What you walk away with
  • A team that can confidently use AI tools in daily work
  • A team-specific prompt library they can keep using
  • Clear guidance on which tools to reach for when
  • Confidence to keep learning and experimenting independently
Full-Day Workshop
8 hours · 1–3 teams or deeper skill-building
$6,500

For teams who need to go beyond using tools and actually redesign how they work.

Everything in the half-day workshop, plus the time to go deeper. We redesign two or three of your team's actual workflows around AI, help you pick the right tools for your stack, put simple guardrails in place, and train one or two internal champions who can carry the work forward after I leave.

See what's included
What happens in the room
  • Morning: AI fundamentals + hands-on tool practice
  • Midday: redesigning 2–3 of your team's top workflows
  • Afternoon: tool selection for your stack + simple usage policies
  • Late afternoon: champion coaching and 30-day planning
What you walk away with
  • Working AI-enabled versions of 2–3 key workflows
  • Tool recommendations specific to your existing stack
  • Basic usage policies and guardrails written down
  • One or two internal champions who can support the rest of the team
  • A concrete 30-day plan for what the team does next
Team Enablement Sprint
3 days · Company-wide rollout
$18,000+

For companies ready to roll out AI across the organization — not just one team.

A three-day intensive that takes a company from "we should be doing AI" to "we have AI running across the business with documented workflows, trained champions, and a clear rollout plan." Think of it as condensing what would otherwise be a three-month initiative into one focused week.

See the 3-day breakdown
Day One
Team-wide fluency

Full-day workshop for the broader team — or staggered sessions if multiple departments are involved. Everyone comes out with baseline AI fluency and comfort using the tools they'll rely on daily.

Day Two
Department workflow design

Working sessions with each department's leadership. We map current workflows, identify the highest-leverage places to insert AI, and redesign 3–5 specific workflows ready to implement immediately.

Day Three
Champions & rollout plan

Train 2–4 internal AI champions who will carry the work forward after I leave. Build your custom AI playbook — tools, prompts, policies, workflows. Walk out with a concrete 90-day rollout plan, complete with named owners and milestones.

What you walk away with
  • Trained team across the organization with shared AI fluency
  • 3–5 redesigned workflows ready to run on Monday morning
  • 2–4 internal champions able to support and train others
  • Custom AI playbook specific to your company and industry
  • 90-day rollout plan with named owners and concrete milestones
Ideal for — Companies with 10–250 employees where leadership has decided AI matters but the team hasn't been given a clear on-ramp.
02
Strategic Assessment

The Castle Audit

Find the three to five places AI will actually move the needle — and skip the fifty that won't.

A focused three-week engagement designed to answer one question clearly: where should your company actually use AI, and where shouldn't you? We look at how your business runs today, talk to the people doing the work, and hand you a prioritized roadmap you can act on — with or without further help from Castle.

How it works — Most of the engagement happens asynchronously. Your team only needs to commit to the kickoff, four to six short interviews with key people (30–45 min each, video or in-person), and the final presentation. The rest is analysis work on my end. Local clients can have in-person sessions; remote clients run the whole engagement over video.

See the 3-week breakdown

Week 1 — Discovery

  • Kickoff session with leadership to align on goals and priorities (90 minutes)
  • Four to six interviews with people across the organization — the people who'd actually use AI day-to-day
  • Review of the tools, software, and workflows you already rely on
  • A look at where time and effort are currently being lost

Week 2 — Analysis (mostly solo work on my end — your team can focus on their day jobs)

  • Mapping every realistic AI opportunity across your business
  • Estimating the time, cost, and return for each opportunity
  • Cutting through the tool landscape — what to buy, what to build, what to ignore
  • Honest assessment of risks and limitations — what AI can't do, and where it'll hurt you if used wrong

Week 3 — Delivery

  • Prioritized roadmap with three to five recommended initiatives to pursue first
  • Cost and benefit breakdown for each, written in plain business terms
  • Implementation partner recommendations if you decide to build
  • Live presentation to leadership with Q&A (90 minutes)
  • Written report you own and can share with your board, investors, or team

What you walk away with —

  • A clear, prioritized roadmap of where to invest in AI over the next 6–12 months
  • Specific cost and ROI estimates so you can build a real budget
  • Confidence about what to ignore — sometimes the most valuable answer
  • A written report you can share internally to align your team
  • Direction on whether to build, buy, or stay put for each opportunity
$12,000
Launch rate · Normal rate $18,000
Ideal for — Companies who know AI should be part of their plan but don't know where to start — or who've already started in three places at once and want to focus.
03
Fractional Advisory

Castle Advisory

A dedicated AI thinking partner embedded in your leadership team — without hiring one full-time.

An ongoing monthly retainer for companies who've started their AI journey and want someone in their corner as the technology — and their needs — keep evolving. Think of it as having an AI-literate advisor on call: you get real answers fast, you make better decisions, and you stop wasting money on tools and initiatives that won't pay off.

Each month, you get

  • Two 60-minute strategy calls with leadership (every other week)
  • Slack and email access for quick questions — responses within one business day
  • One custom mini-deliverable tailored to what you need that month
  • Quarterly roadmap review and adjustment as priorities shift
  • First look at new tools, models, and approaches worth your attention
  • Direct coaching for your internal AI lead or champion, if you have one
See example monthly deliverables

A written evaluation of a specific tool you're considering. A custom prompt library for a workflow your team runs every week. A draft AI usage policy your company can adopt. A comparison of three vendors for a particular need. A training refresher for a new hire. A short report on new developments relevant to your industry. A walkthrough of how to integrate AI into a specific process you're designing.

What ongoing advisory gets you —

  • Faster, better-informed decisions about tools, vendors, and initiatives
  • A steady hand guiding your AI strategy as the technology keeps shifting
  • Less money wasted on tools that don't pan out
  • An internal team that keeps getting stronger, not stuck
  • Confidence that you're not missing something important
$4,500 / month
Launch rate · Normal rate $6,500 / month · 3-month minimum, month-to-month after
Ideal for — Companies 10–250 employees who've done an audit or initial rollout and want steady, informed guidance instead of reinventing the wheel every quarter.
The Castle approach

Three services. One journey.

i

Start with a workshop

Low commitment. Real value in one day. Your team sees what's actually possible with the tools they already have — and how Castle thinks.

ii

Deepen with an audit

When leadership sees the workshop's impact, the natural next step is mapping where AI belongs across the whole business. Three weeks, one roadmap.

iii

Sustain with advisory

Roadmaps need stewardship. Advisory keeps you moving forward steadily — without reinventing your AI strategy every quarter.

About

Built for builders, not boardrooms.

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I use these tools every day. Not as research — as work. That hands-on practice is what Castle is built on.

Most AI advice comes from people who read last year's McKinsey report. That's not what small and mid-size companies need right now. You need someone who knows the real strengths and limits of these tools — what they quietly fail at, what's overhyped, what's underrated, and where the actual opportunities sit. Someone who can watch your team work for twenty minutes and see three places AI would genuinely help them.

Castle exists because that kind of guidance shouldn't be reserved for companies with enterprise budgets. Every engagement is led by me directly — no junior consultants, no handoffs, no account managers. You work with a practitioner who's accountable for the outcome.

Based in Boise. Working with teams across the country.

— Castle
Common questions

Things buyers ask.

If your question isn't here, ask it on a discovery call — no pitch, just a real conversation.

How soon can you start?

Workshops are typically booked 2–4 weeks out. Audits are booked 4–6 weeks out, depending on the calendar. If you have a real deadline, say so on the discovery call — I'll tell you honestly what's possible.

Do you work remote, on-site, or both?

Both. I'm based in Boise, so local clients in the Treasure Valley often prefer in-person — there's no travel cost and the energy of an in-person workshop is hard to beat. Clients outside Idaho typically run engagements fully remote over video, which works surprisingly well for both workshops and audits.

For non-local in-person workshops, travel is billed at cost plus a half-day rate for travel time. Most out-of-state clients choose remote to skip the extra cost.

How customized is the work, really?

Fully. Every workshop has a pre-session intake call where we go over your team's tools, workflows, and specific priorities. The session is then built around your industry, your stack, and your team's actual work. Same goes for audits and advisory — the roadmap you get is for your business, not a template I reuse.

If a consultant tells you they have a "proven curriculum" they deliver the same way to everyone, that's your sign to keep looking.

What tools do you actually recommend?

It depends on the work. Claude and ChatGPT for general-purpose writing and thinking. Purpose-built tools (for email, CRM, meetings, coding, etc.) where they genuinely outperform general-purpose tools. Sometimes the answer is "you don't need a new tool — you need to use the one you have better."

I'm not a reseller, I don't take affiliate fees, and I don't have a preferred vendor. My only incentive is recommending what actually works for your specific situation.

What if we need something built?

Castle's advisory practice is kept separate from any build work — you get the plan first, then decide who builds it. That separation is the point: my recommendations aren't biased toward "let's build it," so sometimes the right answer is a $20/month tool you already own.

If you do need to build, I can refer you to AI engineers and dev shops I trust, and in some cases Castle handles the implementation through a separate engagement with its own scope and pricing.

We've already started using AI — is there a point in hiring you?

Often yes, and frequently more value than starting from scratch. Teams who've started usually have 10–15 employees each doing their own thing with AI, nothing documented, no shared standards, and no idea where the real leverage is. That's exactly what an audit or advisory engagement fixes.

On the discovery call we'll figure out if the timing is right for us to work together, or if you should just keep going on your own for another quarter and revisit later.

Do you handle sensitive data or regulated industries?

I work with companies in finance, legal, healthcare-adjacent, and other regulated spaces — but with clear limits. Castle doesn't access your sensitive data, doesn't touch customer records, and doesn't handle compliance questions that require a licensed professional.

What I do help with: understanding which AI tools are safe to use with what kinds of data, drafting usage policies, and working alongside your legal and compliance teams so your AI rollout doesn't create new risks.

What's the refund or guarantee policy?

Workshops include a straightforward satisfaction guarantee: if your team doesn't rate the session 8 out of 10 or higher, you don't pay. I've never had to honor it, but the offer stands.

Audits are a fixed-fee engagement with a 50% deposit up front and the balance due on delivery. Advisory is month-to-month after the initial 3-month minimum.

How do we get started?

Book a discovery call. 30 minutes, video, no pitch. We talk about your team, your goals, and whether Castle is the right fit. If it is, I'll send a proposal within a couple days. If it isn't, I'll tell you what I think would help and point you somewhere useful.

Ready to stop wondering and start moving?

Book a 30-minute discovery call. We'll talk about your team, your goals, and whether Castle is the right fit. No pitch, no pressure — just a real conversation about what's possible.

Book a discovery call →