Position paper
How AI is reshaping consulting delivery — and the operating model the firms that survive will adopt.
The foundational thesis behind Series-X. Why the senior-operator + agent-stack model wins for the underserved middle.
22 min read
Welcome to Series-X.ai
Get AI working inside your business in 90 days.
A senior operator orchestrating an AI agent stack. Fixed fee. Measurable outcomes — signed before we start.
Operators fromMcKinseyAccentureDeloitteBCGPwCEY
01 / THE GAP
Three-quarters of businesses your size now use AI in some form. Only 14% have got it into the operations that actually matter. Here's why.
CTO
Head of IT
Tech Lead
No internal tech leadership
No CTO or Head of IT to lead a sustained AI programme.
You've heard enough about AI to feel behind.
You have no realistic way to act. That gap is the whole problem — and it's the one we close.
Big Four
£200k+
vs
Series-X
£45k+
No budget for Big Four
Six-figure consultancy fees don't justify themselves at your size.
Is this the right play?
...no reply
No senior advisor on call
No fractional CIO or strategist on the other end of the line.
14%
Have AI in the work that matters
Three in four use AI somewhere. Only one in seven where it counts.
90days
That's how long it takes us
One senior operator, an AI agent stack, fixed fee — installed in a quarter.
Source: 2026 Goldman Sachs study of 10,000 small businesses.
02 / WHY TOOLS AREN'T ENOUGH
Pre-built workflows lower the floor. They don't place a system inside your business.
Claude for Business, Copilot, the agent platforms — all useful. All generic. Every one of them still has to be adapted to your data, your vocabulary, your processes, and the way your team actually works.
The businesses that have already done it had the internal capability to do it. If you don't, the tools never quite land. They sit alongside the work instead of inside it.
We place it there — calibrated and working in ninety days.
03 / THE ENGAGEMENT
Four things make a Series-X engagement different.
No junior consultants. No vague timelines. No surprise invoices.
01
A senior human in the room.
Not a junior consultant. Not a chatbot. A named operator with 20+ years of relevant experience leads every engagement.
02
An AI agent stack does the heavy lifting.
Analysis, content, integration, automation — handled by configurable agents under the operator's direction. Speed and depth a small team alone couldn't match.
03
90 days. Fixed fee. Fixed scope.
No change orders. No expense passes. No surprise extensions.
04
Outcomes signed up front.
We name the success criteria before any work begins, and close out against them — not against effort.
04 / THE MODEL
One senior operator. An agent stack behind them. The output of a team of eight.
The client meets one person — their Series-X Fractional. Behind them, configurable agents do specific parts of the work: workflow, integration, knowledge, content, monitoring.
The agents never speak to the client. The operator directs them, reviews everything, applies judgement, and brings the work into the room. Human judgement on everything you see.
Series-X Fractional
Senior operator
Workflow
Integration
Knowledge
Content
Monitoring
Big Four
Team of ten · 9+ months · £200k+ · junior people producing senior-looking work.
Series-X
One senior operator + agent stack · 90 days · fixed fee · senior judgement on everything.
05 / THE 90 DAYS
Three phases. One quarter. A working system at the end.
Weeks 1–3
Diagnosis
Discovery sessions, we map your workflow, and we draft and sign an engagement charter with measurable success criteria.
Weeks 4–10
Build
We configure and calibrate the agent stack against your real data and voice, integrate with your existing tools (CRM, email, ERP), and run it live with human review in weekly working sessions.
Weeks 11–13
Embed & handover
We measure against the charter, document outcomes, and hand over a working system with a runbook in your own voice.
06 / PRICING
Fixed fee. Named up front. No change orders.
Foundations
For £2–10m businesses
from £45,000
A single workflow installed in 90 days.
Book a discovery callMost popular
Standard
For £10–25m businesses
£75,000
Two workflows, integrated, calibrated and live.
Book a discovery callTransform
For £25–50m businesses
£120,000
Deeper, multi-touch engagement across the operation.
Book a discovery callOptional ongoing intelligence subscription after the engagement, from £2,500/month. Cancellable at 30 days' notice.
07 / IS THIS YOU?
We're picky about fit. It's how the model holds up.
This is for you if
- ✓You're owner-managed, £5–25m revenue, growing.
- ✓You have no CTO and no Head of IT.
- ✓You don't have a Big Four retainer.
- ✓You don't have a fractional CIO or CTO.
- ✓The owner is personally sponsoring the change.
This isn't for you if
- —You have internal tech leadership running an AI roadmap.
- —You already have McKinsey or Faculty on retainer.
- —You want headcount cut — we don't do that.
14%
of small businesses have got AI into the operations that actually matter.
Goldman Sachs, 2026 — study of 10,000 small businesses.
~50%
of the private-sector workforce works at an SMB — yet they're sidelined in the AI conversation.
Fast Company, May 2026.
Placeholder
Client outcomes and case studies land here post-Phase 0.
08 / THINKING
What we're working through in public.
Field note
What 'AI-augmented' actually means inside a £15m business.
6 min
Argument
Why fixed-fee, fixed-scope is the only honest pricing for AI work.
5 min
NEXT STEP
Experience the 90-day shift.
The window to get ahead of this is short. Let's spend 30 minutes on where AI actually fits in your business.