Fractional CTO & CAIO - AI Strategy for Regulated Industries

Senior technology + AI leadership, on retainer, for regulated mid-market organizations.

Kriv AI's Fractional CTO and Chief AI Officer (CAIO) retainer gives regulated mid-market organizations senior technology and AI leadership without the cost, equity, or multi-year commitment of a full-time hire. The engagement is designed for CEOs, CIOs, CDOs, and boards at healthcare, financial services, insurance, and life sciences companies in the $10M–$2B revenue range who need defensible AI strategy, architecture direction, and governance but are not ready to onboard a permanent C-level technologist.

Why it exists. Full-time CTOs with AI fluency in regulated industries command $300–500K base plus equity, with 6–9-month search timelines. Board AI strategy is now a top-three NACD emerging-governance priority. Gartner projects that by 2026, >50% of large enterprises will have a CAIO or equivalent role. Kriv bridges that gap for companies that need the judgment now and aren't ready to hire full-time yet.

Delivered by Abhinav Dangri (Kriv AI CEO, NYU alumnus, architect of a deployed 7-agent healthcare AI governance platform), supported by Kriv's senior architects, data engineers, and AI governance specialists. Kriv AI is an AWS Select Tier Services Partner, Databricks Partner, and member of the Anthropic Claude Partner Network (approved April 2026).

What's included monthly:

• Strategic session(s) with CEO, CIO, or board (cadence by tier)

• Architecture review of in-flight AI initiatives (Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, third-party foundation models)

• AWS Well-Architected Tool review using Machine Learning Lens

• Vendor-neutral guidance: Bedrock vs Azure OpenAI vs Vertex AI; Claude vs GPT-4o vs Gemini; Databricks vs Snowflake

• Build-vs-buy assessments for AI capabilities

• AI governance committee chair or facilitator role; NIST AI RMF + sector-framework alignment (HIPAA, GLBA, NYDFS, SR 11-7, GxP, NAIC as applicable)

• Executive hiring advisory — CTO/VP Engineering/Head of AI search support (role design, interview loops, assessment; Kriv does not recruit)

• Investor + board reporting support (narrative, slides, Q&A prep)

• Anthropic CPN access — curriculum, roadmap briefings, early model insights

• Ad-hoc escalations within retainer hours

Three tiers, month-to-month

• Essential (10 hrs/mo, $8,000): 1 monthly strategy session + 1 architecture review + async office hours. Rolling 3-month minimum.

• Growth (20 hrs/mo, $14,000): 2 strategy sessions + 2 architecture reviews + board meeting prep + quarterly AI roadmap facilitation + vendor short-list guidance. Rolling 3-month minimum.

• Strategic (40 hrs/mo, $25,000): Weekly strategic involvement + full vendor evaluations + executive hiring advisory + M&A tech diligence support + direct board/investor engagements. Rolling 6-month minimum. Includes one annual leadership offsite (travel billed at cost).

Common trigger events: Post-Series C companies without a full-time CTO; post-acquisition integrations where the incoming CTO has departed; PE portfolio companies executing a technology value-creation thesis; organizations accelerating an AI strategy under board pressure; teams seeking vendor-neutral validation of incumbent-proposed AI architectures; orgs with signed MACC/EDP commits needing architectural direction.

What's NOT covered (to manage scope): Hands-on engineering, implementation, or code delivery (available under separate Kriv engagement); legal, regulatory, audit, or fiduciary advice; direct recruiting/sourcing/placement; 24/7 on-call or production incident response.

Disclaimers — important.

AWS infrastructure cost disclaimer: This listing covers advisory, architecture, and program services only. Any AWS infrastructure, Amazon Bedrock model usage, Amazon Q seats, third-party software, and data transfer consumed during or after the engagement are billed by AWS or the relevant vendor directly and are not included in the retainer fee. Advisory-only disclaimer: Services are delivered as independent professional advisory. Kriv AI does not provide legal, regulatory, audit, fiduciary, tax, or investment advice. Customer remains solely responsible for all business, financial, operational, regulatory, and compliance decisions. Recommendations should be reviewed with qualified legal, compliance, and audit counsel before implementation in regulated environments. No endorsement by AWS or Anthropic is implied.

Get started. Contact info@kriv.ai  or +1 732 433 5564. Engagements begin with a structured 2-week onboarding (stakeholder interviews, current-state review, initial findings memo) then monthly cadence. Pause, upgrade, downgrade, or cancel with 30 days' written notice.