You've used ChatGPT. Some days it feels like a superpower. Some days it feels like the thing that quietly replaces you.

Meanwhile the questions pile up and nobody around you has real answers. Can client information touch these tools without breaching confidentiality? Which of the fifty AI products your inbox pitches every week actually matter? Is your competitor down the street already doing this?

You're not behind because you're not smart enough. Whether you work alone or run a firm of twelve, you carry a company's worth of liability with no IT department, no compliance officer, and no time to become a technologist. A course won't settle any of this, and neither will another demo. The question is where AI fits in your work and where it should stay out — and answering it takes someone who has looked hard at both.

What I help with

Automate the context. Keep the core.

We start with a map of how your work actually moves — from "yes" to "paid," with the waits timed. The waits are where the money leaks. Then the repeatable parts become routines: AI does the gathering and the first draft, drops the result in a folder you control, and waits for your approval. Some of the places that shows up:

Research and analysis. Reading a stack of source material, pulling out what matters, and showing its work so you can check it.
Writing and client communication. First drafts in your voice — letters, memos, proposals, follow-ups — that wait for your edit before anyone sees them.
Document-heavy work. Contracts, reports, filings, plans: summarized, compared, and checked against your own standards.
Knowledge management. Your notes, files, and past work made searchable, so the answer you gave three years ago is there when you need it again.
Meeting preparation. Everything you know about a client, gathered before the call instead of after it.
Tools, routines, and automation. Which subscription, configured how, on accounts you own — and a recurring job set up so it does its part and stops at your approval.
Private and local AI. When confidential work shouldn't touch a cloud service at all, and what to run instead.

How I help, in detail →

Who I work with

Independent professionals and expert-led small businesses.

Consultants, advisors, attorneys, CPAs, coaches, recruiters, creative and entertainment professionals, fractional executives, real-estate professionals, and the boutique firms built around people like them. Different fields, one shape: you're established, your clients pay for what you know and how you judge, and nobody else in the building is going to figure out AI for you.

If the value of your business lives in your expertise, your judgment, your relationships, or the work you create, this is built for you.

Who I help, by profession →

Why me

I've spent 30 years building the thing you're worried about.

A decade writing software, a decade running product, a decade translating technology for people who don't live in it. I've been on the inside of every major technology shift in that time — and I've seen what separates the professionals who come out ahead: never the ones who chase tools, always the ones who protect their judgment and point the technology at everything else.

I'm an independent AI advisor. I run a practice of my own, and this is what I do for a living, so I'll tell you plainly: my job is to make AI useful to your business, in your language, without putting your clients' confidential information or your name at risk.

I've built software for internet startups and for highly regulated banks. Security, compliance, and governance were never an afterthought in that work — they were built into how it got delivered. That discipline comes with me to your business.

How I work, and why: About. The formal version — roles, companies, the whole arc — is on LinkedIn. This page is about your business, not mine.

How we work together

Everything starts with a free conversation. From there, three ways in, depending on how deep you want to go. Each one is a fixed fee, agreed before any work starts — no hourly billing, no meter running, no invoice you didn't see coming. We settle the number on our call, once I understand your business. Most people start at the top of this list.

Start here

AI Clarity Session

Ninety minutes, plus a written roadmap

Ninety minutes, one-on-one, then a written roadmap: where AI genuinely helps your business, what it threatens, what to ignore, and the privacy ground rules for your profession — built from a walk through how your work actually moves, so the roadmap names the first routines to build, not just the tools to buy. You leave with a plan whether or not we ever work together again.

What you pay for it credits 100% toward the Playbook Build if you continue within 60 days.

The main work

Playbook Build

A menu, priced piece by piece

Your judgment, written down and put to work. Not a package — a menu, sized and fixed-priced in your Clarity Session, and you pick from it. A recurring job that comes off your desk and stops at your approval. An asset that encodes the playbook in your head. A foundation — the right account, the right walls, the training to run it. Everything on accounts you own; when we're done, you run it without me.

Staying current

AI Advisor Retainer

Monthly, month to month

The tools change monthly; you shouldn't have to track them. Two working sessions a month, straight answers inside two business days, and a plain verdict on any tool someone pitches you. "Skip it" is a complete answer, and the one you'll hear most. Cancel anytime — an email is enough.

Who this is built for: an established business where you are the owner, the expert, and the person who decides — and where clients pay for your judgment rather than your headcount. The field matters less than the shape. You're busy, you're good at what you do, and you'd rather pay once for a clear answer than spend six months experimenting. If that's you, the fees are a rounding error against what your time is worth, and I'll say so plainly on the call.

What an engagement actually looks like:

Interview. We spend a morning on how you work — your voice, your judgment calls, the work only you can do.
Encode. I turn that into working assets: instructions that make the AI sound like you, and tools tuned to your business.
Install. Everything goes onto your own subscription, on your own machine.
Train. Hands-on, until you run it without thinking about it.
Hand off. You're independent. I'm a phone call away — by choice, not by dependency.

Every engagement: your data stays yours, your voice stays yours, everything runs on accounts you own, and nothing goes out under your name without your judgment on it.

And one thing I won't do: I never build anything your clients see. It all sits behind you, in your back office. Your storefront stays yours.

Writing

The One-Person Enterprise

Articles here, plus two LinkedIn series: Sunshine or a Train (complete) and 10x Yourself (in progress).

Article · Waste

Shortcuts that bill you later

Why is AI making my week busier, not shorter? Speed lets you cut more corners, and every corner comes back later as work.

Article · Confidentiality

Can confidential client information go into ChatGPT or Claude?

Sometimes, yes. It depends on the information, your obligations to the client, and how the account handles what you share.

Sunshine or a Train · Post 1

Sunshine or a Train

You can see a light at the end of the tunnel. You just can't tell if it's the way out or a train.

Sunshine or a Train · Post 2

You're Already on the Train

You can outsource your thinking to AI, but you can't outsource your understanding.

Sunshine or a Train · Post 3

Where to Actually Start

The tool isn't the first decision. The first decision is a map of your own work.

Sunshine or a Train · Post 4

Two Roads: 10x or Disrupt

Most people only ever see the first road. They make themselves faster and stop.

10x Yourself · Post 1

10x Isn't Faster

10x doesn't come from working harder — or from handing everything to AI. It comes from deleting the work that was never worth doing.

10x Yourself · Post 2

The Waste Hiding in Your Week

Most of your week isn't work. It's waiting, redoing, reformatting — and doing $30 tasks with a $300 brain.

10x Yourself · Post 3

Map One Thing

Pick one thing you do over and over. Map it, and you'll see it: you get paid for ten minutes and spend two hours getting there.

10x Yourself · Post 4

Friction: The Stalls Between the Steps

The big waste you can see. The friction you've stopped noticing — which is exactly why it wins.

Earlier writing on enterprise software and AI lives in the archive: DevOps.com · SD Times

Speaking

AI for the Independent Professional: Threat, Tool, or Both?

One talk, built for the rooms where independent professionals and firm owners gather — bar sections, financial-planning chapters, CPA societies, consultant and creative-industry groups, and business-owner peer groups. I'm not a professional speaker; I'm a practitioner who shares what I'm learning.

Previous speaking: IBM SHARE, industry conferences, corporate events, and a long-running webinar series.

Ask about speaking

Common questions

Can confidential client information go into ChatGPT or Claude?: With consumer chatbots and default settings — often not, and that's the trap. There are configurations, business-grade agreements, and when necessary fully private setups where nothing leaves your control. Sorting this out for your specific obligations is the first thing we do. The longer answer, and a rule you can write down for your practice, is here.
Why is AI making my week busier, not shorter?: The speed is real. But speed lets you cut more corners than you used to, and every corner you cut comes back later as work: the AI draft sent after reading two lines, or the process that lives only in your head. The busy week you can't explain is last month's shortcuts, coming due. Finding the one that repeats is where I start with every engagement, and here is how to find it yourself.
I already use ChatGPT. What would an AI advisor actually do for me?: Keep using it; that's where most of my clients start. What you have is a capable assistant that knows nothing about your business and has no rules about where your clients' information may go. The advisor's work is everything around it: the right subscription, configured for your confidentiality obligations, on an account you own; your standards written down so a first draft sounds like you; a review step that can't be skipped; and a recurring job or two taken off your desk. Then I teach you to run it without me.
Where should a small professional practice start with AI?: With a map of your own work, not a tool. Pick one thing you do over and over, walk it from "yes" to "paid," and time the waits. The waits are where the money leaks. Then build one routine for the worst of it: the AI gathers and drafts, drops the result in a folder you control, and stops for your yes. Get that one paying off within a week before you start the next. If you'd rather not do the map alone, that's what the AI Clarity Session is for.
What's the difference between buying AI tools and building an AI workflow?: A tool is a subscription. A workflow, which I call a routine, is a job with a trigger, a set of steps, and a place where a person says yes. Buying the tool gets you a blank chat window and a monthly charge. Building the routine means the same job runs the same way every time: the material gets gathered, the first draft gets written to your standards, and nothing moves until you've read it. One subscription and three or four routines is most of what a small firm needs. Most people have fifty tools and no routines.
Is this AI training? Will you teach me ChatGPT?: Training is part of every engagement, and it comes last. Anyone can show you what the tools do. The work is figuring out where they belong in your week, setting them up so confidential material stays where it should, and writing down enough of your judgment that the results sound like you. Then, yes — I train you on it, hands-on, until you run it without me.
I'm not technical. Is this going to be over my head?: No. You're elite at your profession; you don't need to become a technologist. Everything is translated into your world, and you'll never be handed a system you can't run.
Will AI replace what I do?: It will replace parts of what you do — mostly the parts your clients never paid for anyway. It cannot replace knowing what right looks like in your field. The professionals who win point AI at the busywork and keep their judgment in charge. That's the whole practice.
Do you build software? Will you run my systems?: Neither — and that's deliberate. I'm your advisor, not your IT department. Where a working routine is part of an engagement, I set it up on tools you already own and teach you to run it yourself. If your situation ever calls for real infrastructure, I'll spec it, help you choose who builds it, and stay on your side of the table while they do. You should never be dependent on your advisor to keep the lights on.
What tools will I need? What does the setup cost to run?: Usually one professional-grade AI subscription — roughly the cost of a nice dinner each month — that you own, on your own laptop. I'll tell you exactly which one and why, configure it for your business and your confidentiality obligations, and teach you to run it. No server room, no IT contract, no equipment.
Why aren't your prices on the site?: Because the right number depends on your business, and I'd rather quote you honestly than post a range you have to guess yourself into. What I will commit to publicly: every engagement is a fixed fee, agreed in writing before work starts. I don't bill hourly, I don't run a meter, and you'll know the full number before you decide anything. The first conversation is free and there's nothing to sign at the end of it.
Who is this NOT for?: Firms with an IT department. Anyone who wants to fully automate client work with no human review. Anyone shopping for the cheapest prompt list.

Contact

Twenty minutes, no pitch. We talk about your business and where AI might fit — and where it shouldn't.

Book a free 20-minute conversation

Or reach me directly: mark@marklevy.ai · LinkedIn

The problem