Fractional CTO & AI
Fractional CTO and AI integration, on a monthly retainer
At some point every growing company faces technical decisions nobody on the team is equipped to make: which system to buy, whether to build, who to hire, what a vendor’s quote should really cost.
A fractional CTO gives you senior technical leadership part-time, without a full-time executive salary. Sythera Labs offers it as a monthly retainer, together with hands-on AI integration.
When a fractional CTO makes sense
It is usually the right move when one of these sounds familiar:
- You depend on an agency or a single developer and cannot judge the quality of what you are getting.
- You are about to choose a platform or sign a multi-year software contract.
- Your first technical hires are coming and nobody in the company can interview them.
- Your systems have grown piece by piece and no one has a picture of the whole.
- Investors or partners are asking technical questions you cannot answer with confidence.
- You know AI should be useful to your business and want a plan that is more than a chatbot demo.
What the retainer covers
- Architecture decisions: how your systems should fit together, and what to build, buy or retire.
- Hiring: defining roles, reviewing candidates and running technical interviews.
- Vendor decisions: evaluating proposals, reviewing contracts from a technical angle, and holding vendors to what they promised.
- Roadmap: turning business goals into a sequence of technical work with realistic costs.
- Oversight: reviewing what your team or agency ships, so problems surface early.
AI integrated into real workflows
Most companies do not need an AI strategy document. They need one or two processes where AI removes hours of repetitive work, built properly and connected to the systems they already use.
We have experience shipping production AI systems in healthcare, an environment where accuracy, privacy and reliability are not optional. We bring the same discipline to simpler problems: reading and classifying documents, drafting replies from your own data, summarizing calls or tickets, or answering internal questions from your own knowledge base.
We start by finding the workflow where it pays for itself, build a small version, measure whether it works, and only then expand.
How it is different from hiring a consultant
A consultant delivers a report and leaves. A fractional CTO stays, takes part in decisions as they come up, and is accountable for how they turn out.
Because Sythera Labs is also a product studio, the advice comes from a team that builds and operates software every day, including our own hotel management product. And when a recommendation needs to be built, the same team can build it, or work alongside the developers you already have.
How the engagement works
It is a monthly retainer, with no long hiring process. We begin with a call to understand your business and the decisions in front of you, then agree on the time and priorities for the first months.
From there you have a standing point of contact for technical questions and a regular review of progress. Our team is bilingual, based in Guadalajara, Mexico, and works in US time zones.
Advice from people who ship
We build and run Suitera, our own hotel management system, and we are the long-term technical partner for Select Group, a US group of four companies. The judgment we offer as a fractional CTO comes from doing that work.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fractional CTO?
A senior technical leader who works with your company part-time on a retainer. You get the judgment and experience of a chief technology officer without the cost of a full-time executive.
How much time do we get each month?
It depends on what you need. We agree on the time and priorities at the start and adjust as your situation changes.
Do you also write code, or only advise?
Both are possible. The retainer covers leadership and decisions. When something needs to be built, our team can build it, or we can guide your existing developers.
Can you work with our current developers or agency?
Yes. Reviewing and guiding an existing team or vendor is one of the most common reasons companies bring us in.
What kind of AI projects do you take on?
Practical ones tied to a specific workflow, such as processing documents, drafting responses from your own data, or internal search. We have shipped production AI systems in healthcare.
Is there a minimum commitment?
The engagement is a monthly retainer. We set expectations together in the first call, before you commit to anything.
Bring us the decision you are stuck on
Book a 30-minute call. Tell us what you are deciding and we will tell you how we would approach it.
Prefer email? We reply within one business day: info@sytheralabs.com