Fractional, interim,
or full-time?
Three shapes of the same seat, for three different moments in a company's life. What each costs, how fast each starts, and how to tell which one you're actually in.
Same mandate. Different clock.
All three own the same thing: AI strategy, governance and risk, the portfolio of investments, and accountability to the board for the result. What changes is how many days a week and for how long.
Fractional is ongoing and part-time, typically a day or two a week, alongside your existing leadership. Interim is full-time and temporary, in the seat every day until a situation is resolved or a permanent hire lands. Full-time is the permanent executive, with the search and the compensation that implies.
Most $10M–$50M companies should start fractional, for a reason that has nothing to do with cost. You can't write an honest job description for a role whose operating model doesn't exist yet. Six months of fractional work produces the inventory, the governance layer and the roadmap that make the permanent job spec real instead of aspirational.
Three shapes, compared.
Cost, speed and what each is genuinely good at, without the part where every option turns out to be the one being sold.
Fractional CAIO
One to two days a week, ongoing. The default for companies where AI matters strategically but doesn't yet fill an executive's week.
- →Cost: roughly $5K–$30K a month in the open market; $10K–$18K on my published ladder
- →Starts in days; first decisions inside the first week
- →Best for: building the operating model, the governance layer and the first automations across the business
- →Weak spot: needs a functioning leadership team around it, since nobody is present every day
- →Typical duration: 6–18 months, ending with the team recruited or your staff trained to run it
Interim CAIO
Full-time and temporary. The answer when the seat is empty, the program has stalled, or an exposure needs a senior name against it now.
- →Cost: $30K a month and up on my ladder, for three or more days a week
- →Starts in days; designed for situations where waiting is the expensive option
- →Best for: stabilizing a drifting program, closing deferred decisions, covering a departure
- →Weak spot: priced for urgency, so it's the wrong shape for steady-state work
- →Typical duration: 3–9 months, ending in a handover to the permanent hire or a trained internal owner
Full-time CAIO
The permanent executive. Right when AI is the product, when the AI team needs running every day, or when a regulator expects a named officer on staff.
- →Cost: $280K–$650K base, bonus commonly 30–60%, equity on top; $400K–$900K all-in
- →Starts in four to eight months, plus three to six months of ramp
- →Best for: scale, permanence, and a mandate that genuinely fills five days a week
- →Weak spot: hard to unwind, and easy to mis-scope before the operating model exists
- →Typical duration: permanent, with the retention risk that comes with a hot market
How to read your own situation.
Six statements. Whichever one sounds most like your last board meeting points at the answer.
"Nobody owns AI here."
Fractional. You need accountability and an operating model before you need a headcount requisition.
"Our AI lead just resigned."
Interim. A vacancy costs momentum daily, and the successor should inherit a working program rather than a mess.
"AI is the product."
Full-time. When the roadmap and the AI roadmap are the same document, the seat needs filling permanently.
"An auditor asked and we froze."
Start with governance. The inventory and classification come first; the shape of the seat can be decided after.
"We've run twelve pilots."
Fractional, with a bias toward building. Pilot purgatory is an ownership problem that ends when one person can kill things.
"Our CTO has it covered."
Possibly nobody. Check whether that's a mandate with a budget, or a sentence said in a board meeting eighteen months ago.
Most companies should start small.
Not because fractional is better in the abstract, but because hiring order changes the odds of the permanent hire working out.
Betting before you know the job
- , Job description written against an imagined program
- , Four to eight months of search while AI stays unowned
- , Candidate arrives to an unmapped estate and no governance
- , The first months spent on discovery you could have bought for $20K
- , If the scope was wrong, you find out about a year in
Build the job, then hire into it
- →Inventory, governance and roadmap exist before the requisition opens
- →Ownership from week one instead of next fiscal year
- →Job spec written from evidence, including what the work isn't
- →Candidates assessed by someone who has done the role here
- →Successor inherits a running program, an overlap period and a line back to me
Choosing between them.
What is the difference between a fractional and an interim Chief AI Officer?
Time, not seniority. A fractional CAIO works part-time on an ongoing basis, typically one or two days a week alongside your existing leadership. An interim CAIO works full-time for a limited period, in the seat every day until the situation is resolved or a permanent hire lands. Both carry real decision authority and both are hands-on.
Which is cheapest?
Fractional, by a wide margin: roughly $5,000–$30,000 a month against $400,000–$900,000 all-in for a full-time executive, before recruiting fees. But cost is rarely the deciding factor. Speed and scope usually are, because a seat that sits empty for eight months costs more in lost momentum than the salary difference.
Can a fractional engagement turn into a full-time one?
It can, and it's a healthy path. Six months of fractional work produces the inventory, the governance layer and the roadmap that make a permanent job description honest. At that point you either hire someone into a defined role, or you discover the seat doesn't need to be permanent, which is also a useful answer.
How fast can each one start?
Fractional and interim both start in days, subject to availability. A full-time Chief AI Officer search commonly runs four to eight months, then three to six months of ramp before the first substantial decision. That gap is the main reason the fractional and interim markets exist.
What if we don't need any of them?
That's a real outcome and worth saying out loud. If AI at your company is three sanctioned tools, no customer data in them, no regulatory footprint and no roadmap dependency, you need a policy and a named owner inside the existing leadership team, not an executive seat. I'll tell you that rather than sell you a retainer.
Do you offer all three?
Yes. Fractional at $10K–$18K a month, interim or embedded at $30K a month, and the full-time seat for a defined stretch with a handover to the permanent hire I help you recruit. The fixed-fee AI Diagnostic from $20,000 is the usual front door, because it produces the evidence that determines which shape you actually need.
Related reading & paths.
What a Chief AI Officer costs
Full-time salary bands, fractional retainer ranges, and my published numbers side by side.
What is a Chief AI Officer?
The role explained: the mandate, the reporting line, and the four signals that say you need one.
CAIO vs CTO
Which seat owns AI at your company, and what breaks when the answer is "both, sort of".
Not sure which one
you need?
Tell me what AI has to deliver and by when. I'll tell you honestly which shape fits, including when the answer is none of them.