AIAI & Data Strategies
AI Consulting & Delivery

Led by Michael Wacht

Make informed AI decisions. Build lasting business capability.

AI & Data Strategies helps executives and their teams understand what AI means for the business and how to identify AI projects that will be transformative to the business.

We help you prepare the people, data, systems, and governance needed to deliver measurable value.

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Format
2-Day Retreat
Audience
100+ Employees
Access
By Application
Michael Wacht, founder of AI & Data Strategies

Michael Wacht

Founder

AI ADVANTAGE

For leaders ready to move from AI curiosity to AI execution.

The Rise of the AI Citizen Developer by Michael Wacht

New for 2027

Author

Recording the AI Bits & Pieces podcast

AI Bits & Pieces

Podcast

The Process

Start with the People Making the Decisions

Successful AI adoption starts with leaders who understand the opportunities, limitations, and decisions ahead. Through executive coaching and senior leadership training, we address assumptions, answer practical questions, and establish a shared factual understanding of AI.

Together, we explore what AI could mean for your business and where it deserves attention, investment, and preparation.

01

Discovery

Executive Coaching

Understand AI in a confidential, one-on-one setting. Ask any question, test assumptions, and work through what it means for your business.

AI Opportunity Mapping

Evaluating enterprise workflows against ROI pillars to identify and prioritize high-impact AI opportunities.

AI Training for Real Work

Give employees practical AI skills, from the basics to advanced workflows, through lessons they can apply to their daily work.

AI Readiness Assessment

Assess organizational readiness, then test opportunities against process structure, data quality, and system access to see what is ready now.

02

Execution

Turn AI Opportunities Into Operational Results

Putting AI to work requires clear decisions about governance, operating costs, and how people’s roles will change. We help you protect company knowledge, plan for the cost of AI, and establish who will own each solution as it becomes part of daily operations.

Together, we move opportunities that pass the readiness assessment toward implementation, with clear responsibilities and measurable outcomes.

Dynamic Governance

Protect company knowledge and intellectual property while giving employees clear guardrails and room to innovate.

Understanding AI Costs

Understand how token usage, model choice, and pay-as-you-go pricing affect what AI costs to run at scale.

Future Workforce Model

Prepare managers and employees for a workforce where people oversee agent-to-agent and machine-to-machine work.

Execute AI Initiatives

Move opportunities that pass the AI Readiness Assessment into execution, with clear plans for integration, ownership, and measurable results.

03

Development

Move from Plan to Working Solutions

Some AI initiatives need experienced leadership through delivery. We bring decades of C-suite technology and operations experience to the decisions, teams, and technical work involved in building solutions for your business.

Together, we manage the work from approved initiative to implementation, with clear responsibility for scope, budget, timing, and resources.

Strategic Consulting

Apply senior AI strategy and operational experience to execute priority initiatives.

Project Management

Manage scope, budget, schedules, and resources across internal teams and outside partners.

Frontier Model Solutions

Develop solutions using frontier AI models, with attention to reliability, integration, and operating costs.

AI Solutions You Control

Build solutions with open-weight models for greater control over where AI runs, how company data is handled, and what it costs.

Outcomes

Three Wins We Pursue

We identify work that can be done faster, more accurately, or at lower cost. We establish current costs and performance, account for implementation and ongoing AI expenses, and measure the results before claiming a return.

Some of your most important processes live in an employee's head. We capture the steps they take, the exceptions they recognize, and the judgment they apply so the company can keep learning from that knowledge.

Your team may be able to serve more customers, manage more work, or spend more time on difficult problems without adding resources at the same rate. That is a business outcome we can plan for and measure.

Introduction

Meet Michael Wacht

Michael Wacht headshot

Michael Wacht

  • Founder, AI & Data Strategies
  • Founder, AI Bits & Pieces
  • Author, The Rise of the AI Citizen Developer

Michael works with leaders ready to put AI to work. He helps them identify AI opportunities with a high probability of success, prepare their people and systems, and define who will own each initiative, how results will be measured, and what it will take to achieve the business objective.

Michael brings business leaders, Formal IT, and Front Office Professionals into the same conversation to expand the organization’s technical capacity with AI. Drawing on experience across the enterprise, he connects what leaders want to achieve, what technology can support, and what employees know about the work—turning AI’s possibilities into solutions that expand capacity, preserve institutional knowledge, and produce measurable returns.

The Outcome

More capacity. Knowledge retained. Returns measured.

360° perspective: CEO, COO, CIO, CSO, CSCO, CCSO, CMO

360° Perspective

Michael has led the functions AI is beginning to change: operations, technology, supply chain, customer service, marketing, and executive leadership. He has built more than 150 applications and automations and worked across ERP, CRM, WMS, and OMS systems.

That 360° perspective helps him see where AI can create value, what must be ready before it is deployed, and how a promising idea will affect the people and systems across the business.

Startups
Founded four technology companies and sold three, including businesses in ecommerce, file sharing, and marketing platforms.
Private Equity
Investor and advisor focused on post-acquisition synergy capture, turnarounds, and growth.
Charity
Board member and mentor with Winning Futures.

Education: Accounting · International Marketing · Executive MBA

Recording the AI Bits & Pieces podcast

AI in Action

Highlights from the past 12 months

Customer Service & Operations
  • AI Voice: $150K in annual savings
  • Call Center: $350K year-one savings
  • 260k Parts Forecasting: 6 weeks analysis now real time
  • Field Force: Travel and expense auditing
Enterprise Applications
  • Financial analysis using sanitized data
  • Open-weight models for intellectual sovereignty
  • AI scenery imagery for 10,000 ecommerce products
Leadership & Employee Development
  • Executive & senior leadership coaching
  • AI training for groups of 10–200 employees
  • Department-centric Chat and Cowork training
  • AI Certification for Entrepreneurs
AI Education & Community
  • 850 AI Bits & Pieces community members
  • 150+ AI lessons · 500+ articles and posts
  • #1 all-time AI Automation Society leaderboard
  • YT Podcast: AI insights, trends and conversations

The AI Shift

AI is Changing the Rules of Business

AI changes how your business operates, how decisions are made, and who can build solutions within your organization. Applying this emerging technology at enterprise scale brings unique challenges that familiar technology playbooks don’t fully address. Drawing on decades of executive leadership and hands-on AI implementation, we help you understand what changes, avoid costly missteps, and prepare your people, systems, and governance for the transition.

  1. 01

    AI Shift 01

    AI is a Business Model, Not Software

    AI opens up possibilities that go well beyond a software upgrade or a new subscription. The opportunity is to rethink what your business can do and how it operates. Our role is to help you understand what that means for your organization and build a practical path through the transition.AI is foundational to how businesses operate, scale, and compete.

    • What can we do now that we couldn’t before?
    • Where does AI change the economics of the business?
    • Which workflows should we rethink from the ground up?
    • What capabilities will we need to compete?
  2. 02

    AI Shift 02

    The AI-Native Workplace Requires New Governance

    AI allows employees to turn their knowledge into processes, applications, and automations. That creates valuable company assets and new questions about where they live, who controls them, and what happens when an employee leaves. We help you establish governance that protects that value while giving your people room to build.Governance must enable innovation and protect value.

    • Who owns what employees build with AI?
    • Where does that institutional knowledge live?
    • What leaves the company when an employee does?
    • Which guardrails protect the business without slowing progress?
  3. 03

    AI Shift 03

    Enterprise Scale Can’t Be Mostly Right

    Moving AI from a promising demonstration into daily operations brings a different set of demands. Results need to be reliable, exceptions manageable, and costs predictable. We help you understand the design decisions behind dependable AI and prepare for the challenges that emerge at enterprise scale.Reliability at scale requires a different playbook.

    • How do we catch confident but false answers?
    • Will results remain reliable across thousands of cases?
    • Who handles the cases AI cannot resolve?
    • Can we predict costs as usage scales?
  4. 04

    AI Shift 04

    Preparing for Agent-to-Agent Work

    AI creates opportunities for agents and systems to work directly with each other, reducing the need for people to move information between screens. That changes how we think about software, integration, and human involvement. We help you prepare for this shift and understand what it means for the technology decisions you make today.AI moves work beyond the screen, connecting agents and systems directly.

    • What changes when agents work directly across systems?
    • Which screens and handoffs become unnecessary?
    • Where must people retain decision authority?
    • Are today’s systems ready for agent-to-agent work?
  5. 05

    AI Shift 05

    Future State Workforce Model

    AI opens up new possibilities for how people contribute and how teams are organized. It also raises personal questions for employees about their skills, responsibilities, and future in the company. We help you define the workforce your business will need and prepare your current people for the transition with clarity and care.AI is reshaping every role. Prepare your people.

    • Which roles will change first?
    • What new skills can our people develop?
    • How will our people feel as their roles change?
    • What will our future teams look like?
  6. 06

    AI Shift 06

    Front Office Professionals Expand IT Capacity

    AI creates an unprecedented opportunity to expand your organization’s technical capability and capacity. With the right tools, training, and IT partnership, Front Office Professionals can turn their operational knowledge into applications and automations, expanding what your business can build through the people already on your payroll.AI expands technical capacity. Empower your people to build.

    • How does vibe coding reach production?
    • Which operational problems do your people know best?
    • What could they build with AI and training?
    • How do we scale their work with IT partnership?

The Outcome

A Clearer Path from AI Interest to Business Capability

Know where AI can create value, what your organization needs to prepare, and who will own the work. Build the governance and execution discipline to move promising ideas into everyday operations.

Engagement Deliverables

What Your Engagement Delivers

Depending on the agreed scope, your engagement can deliver:

  • We review how your teams work today and where your data and systems actually stand, so decisions start from facts rather than assumptions.

  • A ranked shortlist of where AI can make a difference, with the near-term wins separated from the longer-term bets.

  • The expected return for each opportunity, with every assumption written down so the numbers can be challenged and updated.

  • Who approves what, who is accountable, and how risks get reviewed, so new work is not slowed by uncertainty over ownership.

  • What it takes to build each project and to run it afterwards, including the ongoing costs that are usually discovered late.

  • The first three months laid out in sequence, so your team knows what happens next and who owns each step.

Deliverables vary by engagement and are confirmed as part of the agreed scope.

Our Clients

Who We Help

We work with business owners, executives, senior leadership, Formal IT, and Front Office Professionals who need to turn AI interest into informed decisions and practical business capability.

Formal IT and Front Office Professionals. IT provides the technology foundation, security, compliance, and assurance. Front Office Professionals bring operational knowledge, customer context, and growing AI capability. Our governance approach helps both groups work effectively together, with clear authority, responsibilities, and measures of success.

We work with

  • Business owners
  • Investors
  • CEOs
  • Presidents
  • COOs
  • CFOs
  • CIOs
  • Board members
  • Formal IT
  • Front Office Professionals
  • Senior executives
  • Operators
  • Business leaders with 100+ employees

Best fit if your company

  • Has not started its AI journey
  • Started experimenting but lost momentum
  • Has employees using AI without a clear framework
  • Has large IT backlogs
  • Has data or system complexity
  • Needs workforce resilience
  • Wants to improve efficiency without blindly cutting people
  • Needs a responsible AI adoption strategy
  • Wants to empower employees without creating chaos
AI Bits & Pieces logo

Included

AI Bits & Pieces employee membership.

Every VIP attendee receives access to AI Bits & Pieces resources designed to help employees build AI confidence through short, practical, to-the-point posts and lessons.

AI adoption does not happen only in the boardroom. It happens when employees understand how to use AI responsibly, practically, and productively in the flow of work.

Daily Dose AI Insights

Concise, practical AI lessons designed to build real-world understanding one idea at a time.

AI Foundations Classroom

Self-paced courses covering core AI concepts, terminology, prompting, workflows, and everyday use cases.

Practical AI Fluency

Learn how AI applies across life, work, business, productivity, decision-making, and human judgment.

Real-World Business Applications

Explore how AI is being used by agencies, operators, executives, and teams to improve execution.

Prompting, Workflows, and Automation Guidance

Build confidence using AI tools for practical tasks, business processes, and workflow improvement.

AI for Everyday Work

Learn how to use AI for writing, research, planning, analysis, communication, and productivity.

Explore Employee AI Enablement
Michael Wacht presenting the AI Advantage keynote

Keynotes · Seminars · Leadership Training

The Business Leader’s AI Briefing

What Every Business Leader Should Know Today

AI is changing how companies operate, how employees work, and how leaders make decisions. Michael Wacht helps your audience understand what those changes mean for their business and where to focus next.

Drawing on decades of experience as a business builder, CIO, and COO, Michael connects AI strategy to the decisions leaders face: establishing governance, managing reliability, preparing for agents and automated workflows, and expanding technical capacity through the employees already on their payroll.

Available as a keynote, seminar, or leadership training session, this briefing gives business owners and executives a clearer understanding of what to pursue, what to question, and what their organization needs to prepare for.

  • AI strategy and competitive advantage
  • Governance for an AI-native workplace
  • Reliability, risk, and human oversight
  • Agents and machine-to-machine workflows
  • Citizen developers who expand IT capacity
  • AI literacy and workforce readiness
Bring This Briefing to Your Organization
The Rise of the AI Citizen Developer by Michael Wacht

New for 2027

The Rise of the AI Citizen Developer.

The next wave of IT capacity is already on your payroll.

In the AI era, waiting on IT is not a strategy. Expanding who can solve the problem is.

During twenty years as a CIO and COO, Michael built more than 150 applications and automations with citizen developers trained in business, not programming—saving millions in administrative costs.

His operating model puts Front Office Professionals’ knowledge to work through low-code, no-code, and now AI tools such as Claude Cowork and Claude Code.

Michael offers a practical roadmap to identify promising AI projects, equip employees to build solutions, and establish flexible governance that supports innovation while protecting the company.

  • Governance designed for an AI-native workforce
  • Expand technical capacity with AI-enabled tools
  • Build business solutions using natural language
  • Turn employee know-how into a shared corporate brain
  • Scale AI adoption with practical guardrails
  • Align business innovation with IT governance

Application

Start a Conversation

This retreat is designed for serious business leaders who are ready to evaluate AI as a strategic business capability. Attendance is limited to preserve the quality of the experience, the depth of discussion, and the level of executive interaction.