Fractional AI CTO · "The Abbot" · from $10,000/mo

You don't just get a chief AI officer. You get the whole machine.

Every Fractional AI CTO engagement comes with two things most firms can't buy separately: a senior AI executive who's shipped this in insurance, finance, and fintech, and the Keep, our private AI operations system, installed for your business and run for you 24/7. Strategy at the top. A system underneath doing the work. One engagement, everything included.

Related reading: The Keep, the system inside · What is a fractional AI CTO? · AI for insurance · How we build

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. The Fractional AI CTO seat is led by our founder, Josh Cruz: 12+ years building and shipping production systems, teams of 25+ engineers led, fintech platforms architected from scratch, and AI put into production under real governance. Agentic workflows, SOC 2 sign-off, human-in-the-loop. Not slide decks. Shipped systems with real results.

Who this is for

You see the AI opportunity. Every call still feels like a gamble.

What to build, what to skip, how to keep client data safe, how to get a team of producers or advisors to actually use any of it. A full-time CTO to own those calls runs $250K to $450K a year, takes six months to find, and still needs a team and infrastructure behind them. This engagement replaces that entire stack. One flat monthly engagement, live in about two weeks, cancel with 30 days notice.

  • 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, handled the way few agencies bother to.
  • You can stop any month. Part-time, fully remote, never locked in.
Everything you get

One engagement. Six things you'd otherwise buy separately.

The Abbot: your chief AI officer

Senior AI leadership in the room. The roadmap, the build-or-skip calls, the vendor decisions, a seat at your leadership table. Led personally by our founder, who's spent 12+ years shipping production systems and leading teams of 25+ engineers.

The Keep: your AI operations system, installed

The part nobody else includes. We install a private, always-on system built for your business, and your operations start running on it. Follow-ups at 9pm. Intake parsed before the coffee's on. Reports that show up finished. It runs while your team sleeps, and we run it so your team never has to. Full breakdown of the Keep →

Hands-on engineering

We don't hand you a slide deck and a to-do list. We build the systems, engineer-led: real code, shipped and maintained. Your headcount stays flat while your output doesn't.

The Rule: governance built for regulated work

A human approves anything sensitive. Deterministic, testable code makes the decisions on regulated sends, not a language model's best guess. SOC 2 discipline on every change. Your compliance person gets real answers, fast.

The Chronicle: the receipts

Every action your systems take, logged and readable. What ran, when, why, and who approved it. When a regulator, an E&O carrier, or your own board asks, the answer takes minutes.

Team adoption

AI only pays when people use it. We train your team, build the daily habits, and stay until it sticks.

The math

What this replaces.

Hiring this capability yourself looks like a full-time CTO or chief AI officer at $250K to $450K, an automation engineer at $150K+, plus the infrastructure, tooling, and governance work on top. Call it half a million a year, and six to twelve months before anything ships.

The results compound, because the Keep keeps running. The system we ship in month one is still working in month twelve, with eleven more stacked on top of it.

from $10,000 /mo

Roughly a third of one senior hire, for the executive, the engineering, and the running system together.

  • No equity, no benefits, no executive search
  • Live in about two weeks
  • Month-to-month, 30-day exit, never locked in
Proof

The kind of results this seat delivers.

Real results our founder has delivered, described by industry rather than client name. Your numbers depend on your business, and we'll tell you honestly what's realistic before you spend a dollar.

Insurance · enterprise sales

A tangled pipeline was quietly killing good deals.

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

Manual processes were costing thousands of hours a year.

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

We'd rather show than tell: on your strategy call, ask us to open live systems running in the Keep right now, logs and all.

How it compares

Your options for senior AI leadership.

 Full-time hireBig consultancyAdvisor / coachFractional AI CTO
What you getOne executiveA rotating team and a deckAdvice, no handsExecutive + engineering + a running system
Cost$250K to $450K/yr"Let's talk"$2K to $5K/moFrom $10,000/mo, published
Who buildsThe team they still have to hireRecommendations for your teamYouWe do
Who runs it afterTheir team, eventuallyYou, after handoffYouUs, in the Keep, 24/7
Time to live6 to 12 monthsMonths of discoveryNever~2 weeks
ExitSeverance and a gapChange ordersEasy30 days, clean handoff
FAQ

What you're probably wondering.

What exactly is the Keep?
The Keep is our private AI operations system, an always-on cloud environment where we build and run your automations. It's included in every Fractional AI CTO engagement, not sold separately. Your systems live there, run around the clock, and every action is logged in the Chronicle.
Is it just advice, or do you build too?
Both, and then a third thing: we run it. Strategy from the Abbot, systems built engineer-led, and daily operation in the Keep. Most fractional executives stop at the first one.
How is a Fractional AI CTO different from hiring a full-time CTO?
You get senior AI leadership, hands-on builds, and someone to own the technical calls, part-time and fully remote, for about a third of the $250K to $450K a full-time CTO costs. No equity, no benefits, and you can stop any month.
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 $10,000/mo, scoped to the work you actually need. It's month-to-month with a 30-day exit, so 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.
What happens if we part ways?
Clean exit, 30 days. Your data comes with you, every workflow is documented in the Chronicle, and we wind the systems down in order. No zombie subscriptions in your name, no half-built tools your team inherits, no mess.
Can you work with my existing team and tools?
Yes. We join your team and work over the tools you already use. A big part of the role is helping your people actually adopt AI, and leading your vendors, not ripping out what already works.
Ready when you are

Stop making the big AI calls alone.

Tell us where you want the business to go. We'll tell you honestly what's worth building, in what order, and then we'll build it and run it. Worst case, you leave the call with a straight answer about what AI can and can't do for your firm. Best case, you get the department without the payroll.

Book a strategy call →