Fractional Chief AI Officer

Runpoint Partners; United States; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 250,000; Part time

Job summary

Runpoint Partners is looking for a fractional Chief AI Officer to drive AI opportunity workshops for client leadership teams in the US. This role requires expertise in senior operating and consulting roles, and the ability to translate strategic insights into practical AI applications. You will help organizations prioritize use cases and navigate the complexities of technology decisions. Ideal candidates will have a strong understanding of AI and be comfortable facilitating workshops that produce real outcomes.

Qualifications

• Experience leading workshops that produce decisions and actionable outcomes.
• Ability to challenge both skeptics and enthusiasts on AI applications.
• Experience navigating budget and political complexities in technology decisions.

Responsibilities

• Run AI opportunity workshops for client leadership teams.
• Map workflows, constraints, and near-term use cases for AI.
• Turn workshop outputs into practical recommendations and builder-ready requirements.

Skills

Senior operating experience

Consulting experience

Product strategy

Technology strategy

AI understanding

Job description

This is not Runpoint hiring its own Chief AI Officer. This is a fractional client role for companies that need senior AI judgment before they spend six months making demos nobody uses.

You will run workshops with executives and operating teams, draw out the real workflow constraints, identify where AI is worth applying, and create enough clarity for builders to move. The work is strategic, but it should not smell like a transformation deck.

The best version of this person can walk into a room with a leadership team, lower the temperature, ask better questions, and leave with a prioritized set of use cases, owners, risks, and next actions. Then they can stay close enough to make sure the work survives contact with the business.

What you will do

• Run AI opportunity workshops for client leadership teams and operating groups.
• Map workflows, constraints, data access, adoption risks, and near-term use cases.
• Help executives separate useful AI work from novelty projects and vendor noise.
• Turn workshop outputs into practical scopes, operating recommendations, and builder-ready requirements.
• Coach client teams on governance, adoption, measurement, and sequencing without burying them in policy theater.

What we need

• You have senior operating, consulting, product, transformation, or technology strategy experience.
• You can lead a workshop that produces decisions instead of vibes.
• You understand AI well enough to challenge both skeptics and enthusiasts.
• You can gather requirements from frontline work without flattening them into generic themes.
• You are comfortable being measured by what gets adopted, not how impressive the recommendation looked.

Strong signals

If any of these describe you, the conversation will move quickly.

• You have helped organizations make technology decisions with real budget and political complexity attached.
• You can facilitate a messy executive room without becoming the meeting police.
• You know when the blocker is data, process, leadership alignment, incentives, or fear.
• You can help a company start smaller than it wants and still aim at the right larger system.

This is probably wrong if

• People who want to sell AI transformation speeches.
• People who think workshops are successful because everyone liked the sticky notes.
• People who cannot translate strategy into requirements a builder can use.
• People who are too abstract to inspect a workflow in detail.

How we hire

We prefer evidence over interview performance. Most roles begin with paid contractor work on a real client or internal project. If the fit is strong, the relationship expands from there.