For CX, support and digital leaders
Conversational AI Consulting
Know which conversations a bot should handle, what it costs to run, and whether to buy or build, before you sign anything big.
Conversational AI consulting tells you where a chatbot or voice agent will save real money and where it'll just annoy people. Market rates run $150 to $300 an hour, and a small strategy assessment usually costs $5,000 to $25,000. We do the assessment as the first two weeks of a fixed-scope pilot, so the plan turns into a working bot instead of a slide deck.
Book a call and we'll send a 1-page plan. We don't resell any bot platform.
2 wks
From kickoff to a scored list of use cases
0
Platform commissions. We'll tell you to buy if buying wins
100%
Your test set, prompts and code stay yours
EN + ES
Bilingual team in Mexico City, US hours
The problem
Every vendor has a demo. Nobody has looked at your conversations.
The demo bot answers perfectly. It was built for the demo. Your customers write in half sentences, mix English and Spanish, and ask three things in one message.
So projects get bought on a demo and judged on real traffic, and a lot of them don't survive that.
40%+
of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027, for cost, unclear value or weak risk controls.
44%
of service leaders using AI say tech silos delayed or limited their AI work.
80%
of common customer service issues will be resolved by AI agents by 2029, Gartner predicts. The upside is real.
What you get
Seven things you can act on, in two weeks
01
A baseline
02
A scored use-case list
03
Buy, build or hybrid
04
Cost per conversation
05
Handoff design
06
A draft test set
07
Risk check
| Monthly volume | Risk if wrong | Data ready? | Verdict | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where is my order | 1,900 | Low | Yes, in Shopify | Automate first |
| Return policy questions | 700 | Low | Yes, help center | Automate |
| Change shipping address | 300 | Medium | Needs an API | Automate later |
| Billing disputes | 150 | High | Partly | Agent-assist only |
| Angry escalations | 80 | High | No | Keep human |
Buy or build
Per-resolution pricing looks small until you multiply it
SaaS bots often charge per resolved conversation. Intercom's Fin is $0.99 per outcome, for example. That's a fair deal at low volume. At high volume, owning the bot can cost a fraction (the AI model alone is usually a few cents per chat, though you also pay for the build and upkeep).
What per-resolution pricing costs at your volume
Per year in resolution fees
$59,400
Resolutions × price × 12. Compare against a custom build plus about 15–20% of the build cost per year for upkeep.
| Buy (SaaS) | Build (custom) | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best when | Standard questions, good help center, low volume | Deep system access, strict rules, high volume | You want a SaaS inbox but custom brains behind it |
| Pricing shape | Seats or per-resolution fees | Build cost plus hosting | Both, smaller of each |
| Control | Vendor's settings | Full | High where it matters |
| Time to first version | Days | 4–12 weeks | 3–8 weeks |
How it works
Assessment first, then a pilot you can switch off
- 01Days 1–3
Export and clean
We pull a ticket sample and strip names, emails and card numbers. - 02Days 4–10
Score
Cluster the questions, measure volume and handle time, rate the risk. - 03Week 2
Recommend
Scorecard, buy-or-build call, cost model. You decide to go or stop. - 04Weeks 3–6
Pilot (optional)
Build the top use case, test in shadow mode, launch on one channel.
Got a ticket export lying around?
That's all we need to start the assessment.
Proof
AI we've shipped, with real numbers
25%
less unplanned downtime
$500K
maintenance savings
50
sensors unified
15
operators trained
A mid-sized manufacturer had data from 50 sensors and 10,000+ rows of maintenance history spread across sheets and systems. We pulled it into one place, trained 3 models to spot failures early, and gave the team one dashboard with alerts.
Read the full case studyWatch
Conversational AI in 10 minutes
Already know what you want built? Skip ahead to custom chatbot development services.
Questions buyers ask
Straight answers before you book a call.
Start with your real tickets.
Send us a sample export. In two weeks you'll know which conversations to automate, which to keep human and what it costs.
Book a call and we'll send a 1-page plan. We don't resell any bot platform.