How we work: diagnostic, pilot, build

New York Strategy works in three fixed-scope phases. Each is priced on its own, each ends in a decision that is yours, and you can stop after any phase and keep everything produced in it.

The Diagnostic

We walk the business function by function.

What you get

Interviews with the people who do the work, not only the people who describe it.
An inventory of every system, integration, and spreadsheet the work actually runs on.
A ranked list of what AI should touch, what it should not, and what each is worth in hours or dollars.
A build-and-run cost against every item on that list.

What this phase decides: Whether there is a program here at all. Some companies leave the diagnostic with two automations and no reason to spend another dollar. We will tell you if that is you.

The Pilot

One item from the top of that list, built and put in front of the people who will use it.

What you get

A working system in your environment, on your data, inside the tools your staff already open.
The people whose work it changes involved before it ships, not after.
Measured against the number agreed in the diagnostic, not a demo and not a satisfaction survey.

What this phase decides: Whether it works in your building. A pilot that misses its number is a finding, not a failure, and it is far cheaper here than at scale.

The Build

Production systems, owned by you.

What you get

Data pipelines, integrations, and applications built to run unattended.
Your staff trained to operate what we built, and documentation written for them rather than for us.
The monthly run-rate on your books, where you can see it.
A named owner inside your company for every system, before we step back.

What this phase decides: What your company looks like a year from now. This is where the investment pays off, or does not.

Each phase is priced and scoped on its own. You may stop at the end of any one of them and keep everything produced in it.

How the risk is limited

Most companies have been burned by a pilot that went nowhere. This engagement is built so that cannot happen to you.

Every phase is fixed-scope and priced on its own. No open-ended retainer.
You decide at the end of each phase whether to continue. You keep everything produced.
The first phase is a diagnostic. If it shows AI is not worth your money right now, we tell you that, and you have lost weeks, not a year.
A person on your staff is named as the owner of every system before we step back. Nothing depends on us staying.

Why most AI projects at companies this size fail

They usually fail in the months after the demo, and the reasons are rarely technical. This is the pattern we see most often.

What companies typically buy

A chatbot on the website.
Copilot licences for the whole company, issued in one afternoon.
A pilot handed to whoever on staff seemed most interested.
A vendor demo that used the vendor’s data.

What actually stops it from working

Nobody owns it once the pilot ends, so it quietly stops being anyone’s job.
No one can say what it costs to run per month, so it cannot be defended at budget time.
The staff whose work it changed were told about it rather than consulted, and have been working around it since week two.
The data it needs lives in three systems that disagree, and reconciling them was never scoped.
There was no second step, because no one budgeted one.

Lower Manhattan seen from the streets of DUMBO at dusk.

About New York Strategy

New York Strategy was founded in 2016 to help New York companies get a strategic advantage from their own data. A decade of that work, including data pipelines, machine learning models, and the applications built on them, is what your Chief AI Officer draws on when deciding what is worth building.

Established: 2016
Offices: 1 World Trade Center
Principal: Ramy Noaman
Practice: Strategy · Change · Build

Led by

Ramy Noaman

Principal · Fractional Chief AI Officer

One hour · No cost

Book your AI Opportunity Review

You leave with your three biggest automation candidates, ranked, and a straight answer on whether a diagnostic is worth your money.

Book your AI Opportunity Review ramy@nystrategy.com