“It’s too expensive for a firm our size.”
Most AI consulting is priced like enterprise transformation. For a 20-person firm that math never works, so nothing happens.
§ 1 AI consulting for small businesses
AI consulting for small firms, priced like a hire — not a transformation.
Most AI consulting is built for enterprises and priced to match. LanternOps is for owner-led professional firms of 10 to 50: one workflow, a bounded cost, a human approving everything that leaves, and a team that operates it for you.
§ 2 The blockers
Why AI stalls at small firms
It isn’t that small firms don’t get AI. It’s that the way it’s usually sold doesn’t fit a 20-person practice. Four blockers come up every time.
“We don’t have an IT team to run it.”
You have a practice to run, not a platform. Tools that need a technical owner you don’t have are tools that get abandoned.
“Our client data can’t leak into some chatbot.”
You carry the same confidentiality duty as a big firm with none of the compliance staff. Unmanaged AI is a real exposure.
“We tried AI and nothing stuck.”
A chat window helps one person on one task. It doesn’t change how the firm runs, so the enthusiasm fades by month two.
§ 3 How we de-risk it
Built so a small firm can actually say yes
Every part of the model is designed to remove the reason a small firm would hesitate: cost, risk, and who runs it after launch.
- Priced like a salary, not a project. You’re effectively hiring a supervised AI Team for one job. The cost is legible and bounded, the way a junior hire is, not an open-ended transformation budget.
- One workflow first, proven before you scale. We pick a single high-friction workflow, put AI on the prep-and-draft layer, and prove one measurable outcome. No firm-wide rollout, no big bet.
- A human approves everything that leaves. AI prepares the work. Your people approve anything client-facing. Confidential work stays behind a gate. You never ship something unseen.
- We operate it, so you don’t need an IT team. After launch, we run the AI layer: prompts, connectors, reviews, and tuning. You get the output and the oversight without hiring a platform team.
§ 4 Who it’s for
Owner-led professional firms
This is for the owner, partner, or managing partner of a professional firm of roughly 10 to 50 people, where real manual work moves between people and client confidentiality matters: law, accounting, engineering, advisory, and the like.
It’s not for solopreneurs, who are usually well served by off-the-shelf tools, and it’s not enterprise transformation. If you’re a small firm that wants AI working under control without hiring a tech team, you’re exactly who we built this for.
§ 5 Common questions
AI consulting for small business: FAQ
How much does AI consulting cost for a small business?
It depends on scope, but LanternOps prices an engagement the way you’d price a hire, not an enterprise transformation. The point is a number you can reason about up front. The fastest way to a real figure is a free workflow diagnosis, where we scope the first project with you.
Do I need an IT team or technical staff?
No. That’s the whole model. We build and then operate the AI layer for you — prompts, connectors, reviews, and ongoing tuning. You run your practice; we run the system around the AI.
Is my clients’ confidential data safe?
Safety is the design, not an add-on. Each AI Team is permissioned to exactly what it may touch, sensitive and client-facing work routes through a human approval gate, and everything is logged. You keep the same control a careful firm expects.
What’s a good first AI project for a small firm?
A repetitive, document-heavy workflow that runs from a known pattern — intake, drafting, summarizing, routing, reporting. Start with the work that eats your people’s time, not with the model. The readiness check points you at the right one.
Is this for solopreneurs or one-person businesses?
Not really. We’re built for owner-led professional firms of roughly 10 to 50 people — law, accounting, engineering, advisory, and similar — where real manual work moves between people and client confidentiality matters. A solo operator is usually better served by off-the-shelf tools.
§ 6 Start here
Start with one workflow.
Book a free workflow diagnosis. We’ll find the one place a supervised AI Team earns its keep in your firm and scope what it would take — priced like a hire, with no obligation to go further.
Proof over promises: the Operator’s Log publishes real numbers from running supervised AI Teams across five ventures. What shipped, what it cost, what we had to fix.