Fractional chief AI officer for Austin companies that need AI to have an owner.
I'm Yiannis Papastergiou, an independent AI consultant based in Thessaloniki, Greece, working with companies of roughly €1M+ in revenue. I work with Austin companies remotely from Greece. I have no office, team or clients in Texas. As your fractional chief AI officer I give AI an owner, a scoreboard and a quarterly plan, one to three days a week.
Fractional chief AI officer · Austin, Texas · Remote from Greece
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What is a fractional chief AI officer for an Austin company?
A fractional chief AI officer is a senior AI leader who works with your company one to three days a week instead of joining full time. For an Austin company, the job is to give AI one accountable owner, a scoreboard, a monthly review and a quarterly plan. I do this remotely from Greece, as the Own step of the AI P.R.O. Method.
The short answer
Why does AI in an Austin company so often belong to nobody?
AI often arrives from several directions at once. Marketing tries one tool, a developer tries another, and an operations lead builds a workflow on a free account. Each experiment makes sense alone. Nobody holds all of them in one view.
The founder or CEO ends up as the only person who sees the whole picture, which is exactly the bottleneck AI was meant to remove. These are the questions that go unanswered:
Who approves a new AI tool, and who decides when to stop using one?
Who can tell your leadership team, in numbers, what AI has returned so far?
Who answers when a customer, a partner or a regulator asks how your company uses AI?
IT is not the default answer to any of these, and neither am I. The person accountable has to sit inside your company. My part is to give that person senior judgement, a rhythm and the rules.
A fractional chief AI officer exists to answer those three questions in writing, every quarter.
The problem
What does a fractional chief AI officer in Austin actually do?
This is the Own step of the AI P.R.O. Method, with a fractional chief AI officer embedded in it. It runs monthly, and you can stop any time.
One named person in your company is accountable for AI results. Not IT by default, and not me. I work alongside them so they are not carrying it alone.
An owner
The numbers that matter, where everyone can see them. Your owner looks at it every week.
A scoreboard
I review the scoreboard with your owner once a month. Updates and improvements arrive on their own.
A monthly review
Your leadership team spends one meeting a quarter on the next 90 days, and I redo the plan with you. The next thing holding you back gets named.
A quarterly plan
What AI may and may not be used for, and how data is handled safely, including the EU AI Act where it applies.
The rules
1–3 days a week, with three named results agreed each quarter. If none of them is live, the next month isn't invoiced.
Three named results
You are done when you run one full 90-day round without me. That is the point of the role: it ends when you no longer need it.
What the role covers
What should an Austin AI owner be able to show the Texas Attorney General?
Texas has its own AI statute. The Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act (HB 149) took effect on 1 January 2026, according to Baker Botts' 2025 summary. It applies to anyone who conducts business in Texas or develops or deploys AI there. Only the Texas Attorney General can enforce it, there is no private right of action, and the Attorney General must allow a 60-day cure period before suing. Haynes Boone (2025) adds that developers and deployers must answer the Attorney General's inquiries about their AI systems.
For private companies the prohibited uses centre on intentional harm, and both law firms note that disparate impact alone is not enough to show intent to discriminate. The practical point for an owner is different. Baker Botts reports that the Act gives a defence to organizations that substantially comply with the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, or that find problems through their own testing. Civil penalties range from $10,000 up to $200,000 per violation, plus up to $40,000 a day for continuing violations (Haynes Boone, 2025).
So the test I would put to an Austin AI owner is simple. Could you list the AI your company uses, say who is accountable for each system, and show the framework you follow? NIST published AI RMF 1.0 on 26 January 2023 and a Generative AI Profile on 26 July 2024. I am not a lawyer. Your counsel confirms what the statute requires of you. AI Governance & EU AI Act Compliance can be added at any step when you need that work done formally.
If you sell into the EU, Article 2(1)(c) of the EU AI Act reaches providers and deployers located outside the EU where the output of their AI system is used in the Union.
Sources: Baker Botts (2025), Haynes Boone (2025), NIST, and the EU AI Act text. Summaries by law firms are not the statute itself.
What applies in Texas
Fractional chief AI officer, full-time hire, Austin consultancy or nobody: which fits?
Option
Fits when
Watch for
Not for you if you need someone physically in Austin, or if you want a slide deck rather than a running rhythm.
Fractional chief AI officer
AI is already in use across the company and nobody owns it
Remote from Greece, so nobody sits in your Austin office
Full-time AI executive
AI is central to your product and needs daily presence
A large fixed commitment before anything ships
Austin AI consultancy
You want a local team in the room
Ask who does the work after the sales meeting
Nobody yet
AI use is light and mistakes are cheap to catch
Staff using personal accounts with no rules
Each option fits a different situation. Here is how I would weigh them for an Austin company.
Options compared
How does a fractional chief AI officer work with an Austin company from Greece?
I am based in Thessaloniki, Greece. I work with Austin companies remotely. I do not have an Austin office, a Texas team or Texas clients, and I won't imply otherwise.
Greece is usually eight hours ahead of Austin, and the gap shifts by an hour for a few weeks each spring and autumn when the two sides change clocks on different dates. The working day overlaps in your morning and my afternoon. The rhythm is built for distance: a scoreboard your owner reads every week, one short review a month and one leadership meeting a quarter.
In person is something I offer in Athens and Thessaloniki. For Austin, everything is remote.
How it works from Greece
Who would be your fractional chief AI officer?
One person, the one who also builds. Here is the background that sits behind the role.
As Product Owner at Natech I led its anti-money-laundering software from desktop to a modern web platform. It is now the company's market spearhead.
Regulated fintech
At Companies House, the UK's official business registry, I worked on the systems behind millions of searches and filings every year. At KLA I built and hardened production software for the modules that control chip fabrication.
Things that must not break
For Bronzed Studio I automated the Instagram booking flow, and the owner got back at least 10 hours a week.
A small business, measured
At ARAG UK, a legal insurance business, I started as the sole developer and became technical lead of a hand-picked team of contractors.
A 500-person business, one developer
No company has been through all four steps of the AI P.R.O. Method. It is new, and I would rather say so. The first businesses through it get my full attention.
What I have not done yet
None of that proves what a fractional chief AI officer would do in your company. The free AI Growth GPS lets you test my thinking on your own business first.
Who you would be dealing with
Which services sit around a fractional chief AI officer?
See the AI P.R.O. Method
Start where your question is. Each step can be taken by itself.
I look inside your numbers, processes and people, so the owner starts from facts.
AI Readiness Assessment
What to build first, and what not to build at all.
AI Strategy & Roadmap
Plan · from €1,500
One build against one number, with clear limits on what it may and may not do.
AI Agents & Custom AI Solutions
Repetitive workflows automated and measured in hours back each week.
Automation
Run
An owner for AI, embedded, one to three days a week.
Fractional Chief AI Officer
Hands-on sessions on your people's real work.
AI Training & Executive Workshops
Own
For regulated businesses, or companies selling into the EU.
AI Governance & EU AI Act Compliance
At any step
Around the role
What happens after you click
You don't have to start at the beginning. If AI is already in use across your company and nobody owns it, Own is where your question is. Stop after any step and keep what you hold.
your growth constraint named and a 7-day plan, your result on screen
Step 1
Discover, free: the AI Growth GPS. A 3–5 minute conversation on this site: tap or type your answers.
a one-page 90-day plan and a clear go, not yet or no
Step 2
Plan, from €1,500, when you want the inside view: the priority, today's number, the owner and what gets built first.
an owner, a scoreboard, a 90-day rhythm and the rules for using AI safely
Step 3
Own, monthly: the owner, the scoreboard and the quarterly rhythm, with me embedded one to three days a week.
No call required
Questions Austin leaders ask about a fractional chief AI officer
The titles are used loosely, so I describe the work instead. I give AI an owner inside your company, a scoreboard everyone can see, a monthly review and a quarterly plan, and I write down the rules for using AI safely. I do it one to three days a week, remotely from Greece, until your team can run a full 90-day round without me.
What does a fractional head of AI do in Austin, and is it the same as a fractional CAIO?
One to three days a week. We agree three named results each quarter. If none of them is live, the next month isn't invoiced. The arrangement is monthly and you can stop any time. If you stop, everything built stays yours; it just stops improving.
How many days a week does a fractional chief AI officer work?
No. I am based in Thessaloniki, Greece, and everything for Austin runs remotely. I have no Austin office, local team or Texas clients. Greece is usually eight hours ahead, so your morning overlaps with my afternoon, and the rhythm relies on a weekly scoreboard, a short monthly review and one leadership meeting a quarter.
Do you work in person in Austin?
A full-time AI executive suits a company where AI is central to the product and needs daily presence. A fractional chief AI officer suits a company where AI is already in use across teams and nobody owns it. Full-time is a large fixed commitment before anything ships. My view is to prove the value first, then hire.
Fractional chief AI officer or a full-time hire?
One named person who is accountable for AI results. It should not be IT by default, and it should not be me. Choose someone with authority across the teams that use AI and a seat in leadership conversations. I work alongside them: they own the outcome, and I bring senior judgement and the rhythm.
Who inside my company should be the named AI owner?
Neither law-firm summary I read, from Baker Botts and Haynes Boone in 2025, mentions a requirement to appoint one. The Act took effect on 1 January 2026 and is enforced only by the Texas Attorney General. I am not a lawyer, so your counsel should confirm what applies to your company. A named owner helps you answer inquiries.
Does the Texas AI law require a chief AI officer?
It can. Article 2(1)(c) covers providers and deployers located in a third country where the output of their AI system is used in the Union. If you sell to EU customers or use AI on EU data, ask whether that applies. AI Governance & EU AI Act Compliance gives you a written answer for your company.
Does the EU AI Act apply to an Austin company?
I only print one figure on this page: Plan starts from €1,500. Own is monthly, and you can stop any time. I don't publish a monthly figure for it here. I call it an investment, not a cost, because the point is a return you can see on the scoreboard.
How much does a fractional chief AI officer cost?
A small example: for Bronzed Studio I automated the Instagram booking flow, and the owner got back at least 10 hours a week. Behind that are 15+ years of building software that must not break, at KLA, Companies House, ARAG UK and Natech. The services are new as a set, and no company has been through all four steps yet.
What results have you delivered?
Each quarter has three named results. If none of them is live, the next month isn't invoiced. Everything built stays yours. If you stop, it keeps what it has and stops improving.
What if the work does not deliver?
Questions
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About 3–5 minutes, mostly one-tap answers, then your name and work email. Your result on screen, with a 7-day plan. No call required.
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