Fractional AI CTO · "The Abbot"

You're making big AI decisions — with no one senior in your corner.

A Fractional AI CTO from Digital Monestary is senior AI leadership on your team — part-time, fully remote. We set the strategy, build the systems, get your people actually using AI, and keep your data safe — for about a third of a full-time hire. From $7,500/mo.

Josh Cruz, founder and CTO of Digital Monestary
Led by Josh Cruz
Founder · CTO · Applied AI Engineer · Redding, CA

Digital Monestary is an engineer-led agency — and the Fractional AI CTO seat is led by our founder, Josh Cruz, with a team that grows alongside the work. Josh has built and led engineering teams of 25+, architected fintech platforms from the ground up, and put AI into production under real governance: agentic workflows, SOC 2 sign-off, human-in-the-loop. Not hype — shipped systems.

Who it's for

You're growing fast — and AI keeps raising the stakes.

You see what AI could do for your business, but every call feels like a gamble: what to build, what to skip, how to keep data safe, how to get your team to actually use it. A full-time CTO costs $250K–$450K. You need that judgment — not that bill.

  • You get a senior partner, not a vendor dropping off tools and disappearing.
  • You stop guessing on the big AI bets — someone who's shipped this owns the call.
  • Your team actually adopts AI, instead of buying software that sits unused.
  • Your data stays safe — security and PII handled the way few agencies bother to.
  • You can stop any month. Part-time, fully remote, never locked in.
More than installing tools

We become part of your team.

The lower rungs install systems and keep them running. This is different: we help you decide where the whole business is going, then move it there with you.

🧭

Strategy

Where your business is heading, how AI changes the game, and how you stay ahead of — and beat — your competitors. A roadmap tied to revenue, not hype.

🤝

Adoption

AI only pays off when people use it. We train your team and build the habits so it gets used every day, not shelved after the demo.

🛡

Protection

Security, PII, and safe AI — the part few agencies talk about. SOC 2 governance and human-in-the-loop so you grow without exposing yourself.

📈

Growth with what you have

Make more money with your current team, take on more customers, and save serious cash — without adding headcount to do it.

Proven results

Automation work that paid for itself.

A decade of systems that gave people their time and revenue back — across fintech, insurance, finance and manufacturing.

Insurance · enterprise sales

Sales reps were drowning in a messy pipeline.

The problem

Tangled backend data, stale leads, no clear view of what to work next. Good opportunities were quietly dying.

What we built

Clean modular pipeline tools, automated lead enrichment, and a smart engine that retires stale leads on its own.

$1.7M
in added sales revenue, with pipelines that manage themselves
Equipment finance · operations

A whole department was losing thousands of hours to busywork.

The problem

Core processes run by hand — slow, error-prone, impossible to scale.

What we built

Custom dashboards and step-by-step automation that took over the manual work and doubled processing speed.

2,200+
hours saved in one department · 2× faster · ~$450K/yr
Fintech · alternative investments

Complex partner payouts, all done by hand.

The problem

Multi-party revenue splits across white-label partners nobody wanted to calculate manually.

What we built

Architected the platform from scratch with an autonomous multi-tier billing engine on Stripe Connect.

100%
automated payouts across multiple partner brands
Manufacturing · software

Costly downtime and a platform at its limits.

The problem

Expensive equipment downtime while the system bumped against processing ceilings.

What we built

An AI-driven fix plus a re-architected data layer customers can extend without code.

10×
event-processing capacity, re-architected
What it costs — and saves

Senior AI leadership at a third of the price.

A full-time CTO runs $250K–$450K a year once you add equity and benefits. A fractional engagement gives you most of the value, none of the overhead — and you can stop any month.

from $7,500 /mo

Scoped to the hours and scope you actually need.

  • ~⅓ the cost of a full-time CTO
  • 3–10× typical return on the engagement
  • Month-to-month — a 30-day exit, never locked in
  • Live in ~2 weeks, not a 4–6 month executive search
FAQ

Questions, answered.

How is a Fractional AI CTO different from hiring a full-time CTO?
You get senior AI leadership — strategy, hands-on builds, and someone to own the technical calls — part-time and fully remote, for about a third of the $250K–$450K a full-time CTO costs. No equity, no benefits, and you can stop any month.
Is it just advice, or do you build too?
Both. We set the roadmap and we build it — real systems and real code, not slide decks. We also lead your team and your vendors, and handle AI governance so things ship safely.
Do you work on-site?
No — engagements are fully remote. We work as part of your team over the tools you already use, so location is never a constraint.
What does it cost, and can we stop?
Engagements start at $7,500/mo, scoped to the hours and work you actually need. It's month-to-month with a 30-day exit — you're never locked in.
How fast can we start?
Most engagements are live in about two weeks, not the four-to-six months a full-time executive search takes.
Let's talk

Where are you trying to go?

Bring us your AI ambitions and your constraints. We'll tell you honestly what's worth building, in what order — and we can build it.

See what AI leadership looks like for my business →