How we work
Human centred AI,
and no vendor lock in.
We are not a software vendor and we are not a body shop. We come along with you, build the thing, and leave you able to run it. That is the whole model.
Why off-the-shelf AI keeps failing
The industry sold a promise that AI is plug and play. It is not. Solutions marketed as off the shelf are built for everybody, which means they are built for nobody in particular. They assume data you do not have, in formats you do not use, and workflows that are not yours.
We do not believe a genuine off-the-shelf AI product exists, so we do not sell one.
The 80/20 model
Full custom development is slow and expensive. Packaged software does not fit. Aether, our platform, is how we get both. Around eighty percent of a solution is already built, proven and secure. The remaining twenty percent is where your business logic, your data structures and your workflow variations go, and that part is consulting work.
You are not buying a licence. Aether is how we get to the starting line faster, and it is included in the cost of delivery.
Where to start
Three steps, and you decide where they end.
Here is exactly what happens when you get in touch, and where it is allowed to stop.
Step one · Problem statement
- A 30 minute call to work out what is actually broken, not which technology to buy
Free. No obligation.
Step two · Discovery
- A short, fixed price engagement
- Architecture review, use case assessment, or whatever the problem needs
- Ends in a clear, written recommendation
Fixed price. A real deliverable on its own.
Step three · Your call
- Build it with your own team
- Hand it to your existing vendor
- Bring it back to us
Discovery is not a pitch in disguise. What you do with the recommendation is yours to decide, and we are not offended either way.
Two to eight weeks, once the scope is known
Discovery is what tells us which end of that range you land on. What follows is the shape of a build: a configured AI product sits at the short end, a POD engagement can run the full range. The other two pathways are shaped differently, and we say how underneath.
A focused build: two to three weeks
One clear use case, data that is already reachable, and a small group of users. Week one turns the discovery recommendation into something working. Week two or three is hardening, integration and handover. Most single workflow solutions land here.
A full production solution: six to eight weeks
- Weeks 1 to 2, design and prototype. We pick up from what discovery already found rather than asking the same questions again, and put something working in front of you early.
- Weeks 3 to 6, build. Short iterations, weekly demonstrations, integration with your systems, and testing with real users.
- Weeks 7 to 8, deploy and hand over. Production release, training, documentation, and support while your team takes the wheel.
A focused build finishes here, at two to three weeks
Larger programmes are cut into slices that each reach production, rather than one long build that lands at the end. If a piece of work genuinely needs longer than eight weeks, we will say so up front instead of pretending otherwise.
Data as a Service and staff augmentation do not run to this shape. The platform is something we keep operating for you, so it has a start date but no hand-over date. Staff augmentation runs by the day or the sprint, for as long as you need the capacity.
You own the result
Source code, documentation, infrastructure and data. All yours, with the freedom to modify or extend it without us. Our engineers pair with yours and write down the reasoning behind architecture decisions, so the capability stays after the invoice.
If you want us to keep operating it, that is a choice you make later, not a dependency we build in.
Honest advice, including no
If AI is not the right answer for the problem you have described, we will say so. If you are not ready, we will tell you what to fix first. If there is a simpler and cheaper way, we will point at it. We would rather keep the relationship than win the project.
Where your data lives, and who touches it
Solutions are deployed in Australian cloud regions and client data stays in the country. Access is scoped to the people who need it, logged, and revoked at the end of the engagement.
Our leadership and client-facing team is in Brisbane. Some of our delivery engineers sit offshore, and we would rather tell you that plainly than bury it. Offshore engineers work in your environment under the same access controls as everyone else, and your data does not leave Australian regions regardless of who is working on it. If your procurement rules require an onshore-only delivery team, say so early and we will scope it that way.
Bring the problem, not a brief.
Thirty minutes is usually enough for both of us to know whether there is something here.