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Octant Advisory | AI Ambition into Measurable Performance

Define your AI ambition and turn it
into measurable results.

We help leadership teams define where AI will create value and how they will measure it, then identify what has to change in the organization to deliver it.

Your competitors are already deciding how they will use AI to win your customers. The ones who move first will lower their costs, serve customers faster and take market share that is hard to win back.

See Where to Start
Independent by design

We don’t sell software or bid on implementation work, so our advice isn’t biased to win the follow-on technology projects.

Why AI Underperforms

Four places an AI program stalls.

Fewer than 1% of the 1,075 C-suite leaders surveyed in the Forbes AI Study (2025) reported a significant return from AI. In our experience the technology is rarely the reason. Nobody defined what AI was supposed to deliver. Leaders disagree on priorities. Governance built to control risk slows every decision. Pilots go live with no baseline, so nobody can show what they returned.

Mandate
Has leadership agreed which business problems and opportunities AI should take on, across Reinvent, Expand and Improve, and what each should be worth?
Leadership
Are executives and managers aligned on that mandate, and equipped to lead the change it requires?
Execution
Can governance, the operating model, data and technology strategy, and the workforce carry the work?
Performance
Are results measured against a baseline, with a named owner, and reported to the board?

“I’ve been part of hundreds of AI initiatives and talked with thousands of executives running them. AI underperforms when the technology gets deployed into an organization that isn’t ready to support it. The mandate, the leadership, the governance, data strategy, and operating model have to come first.”

Dr. Ian McCulloh · Co-Founder

Where to Start

Define the ambition first.
Then make sure your organization can deliver it.

Most companies start spending on AI before they have agreed what it should return. We start with the mandate: the business problems AI should solve and what each one is worth. Then we assess whether your organization is set up to deliver it.

01  Define the ambition
AI Value Mandate
Four weeks. We work with your CEO, executives and managers to identify the business problems and opportunities AI should take on. Each one gets an estimated value, a cost range, an executive owner, a way to measure it and a clear call: proceed, investigate, defer or stop. Leadership aligns around the result.
Ways in: AI Value Mandate Workshop, Executive AI Workshop, Executive AI Strategy Education
About the AI Value Mandate →
02  Make sure you can deliver it
AI Reality (AIR) Diagnostic
Six weeks, using our AIR-O℠ assessment. We survey your workforce, interview your executives, review your policies and documents, and trace what happened to pilots that stalled. You get every organizational condition that would hold back AI performance, the evidence for each, and a transformation plan in the order the work has to happen.
Way in: Workforce AI Survey
About the AI Reality (AIR) Diagnostic →
03  Deliver and measure
AI Advisory
Optional. Your own teams or the firms you choose carry out the plan. We stay on as an independent advisor: we track progress against each owner and date, give you a second opinion on major AI decisions before you commit, and report results to the board.
About AI Advisory →
What You Walk Away With

What your leadership team
can act on.

✓ An agreed set of AI priorities, each with an estimated value, an owner and a way to measure it
✓ A clear call on every opportunity, including the ones to stop
✓ Every organizational condition that would hold back AI performance, with the evidence behind it
✓ Where your leaders disagree, and by how much
✓ What employees and managers report about AI, set beside what leadership expected them to say
✓ A transformation plan with an owner and a decision date on every item
The Octant AI Reality (AIR) Index℠

How we assess
the organization.

The AIR Index has three instruments. Every engagement that assesses the organization starts with AIR-O. We recommend AIR-T or AIR-L only when the AIR-O evidence calls for it.

AIR-O℠ · Organization
Eight dimensions: strategic mandate, executive alignment, governance and decision rights, data and technology strategy, operating model, leadership capability, workforce and culture, and value measurement.
AIR-T℠ · Technology
Whether your data, architecture, security and engineering can move AI from pilot to production and keep it running.
AIR-L℠ · Leadership
Whether the leaders accountable for AI have what it takes to lead the change, assessed with established leadership-assessment methods.
The Octant AI Reality (AIR) Index: eight organizational dimensions
How we work →
Who We Work With

Midmarket companies,
in any industry.

We work with midmarket companies in every industry. Here is what the work looks like in four sectors where we have deep experience.

Government Contractors & Defense
Contractors competing where evaluators ask how AI is used in delivery, and where CUI and export rules limit what AI can touch.
Financial Services
Banks, insurers and asset managers that have to take AI through model risk and compliance review before it reaches a customer.
Healthcare
Providers and health companies putting AI into scheduling, documentation and revenue cycle, where patient data and clinical risk set the limits.
Private Equity Portfolios
Operating partners who want one consistent view of where AI can create value across the portfolio, and what each company has to change to capture it.
Why Octant

Why leadership teams
work with us.

01  Independent
We don’t sell software or bid on implementation work, so our advice isn’t biased to win the follow-on technology projects. If you want help carrying out the plan, AI Advisory is a separate, optional engagement. We disclose any referral or commercial relationship in writing before work begins.
02  We have done this work
Ian helped build and led the AI practice at a Fortune Global 500 company and now directs AI executive education at Johns Hopkins. Maria built the leadership team behind that practice and has spent 20 years assessing and placing transformational leaders.
03  Founder-led
Maria and Ian conduct the executive interviews, score the evidence, lead the executive readout and write the transformation plan. Specialists join when the work calls for them, named in the engagement plan.
04  Focused on the people side
We spend most of an engagement on the mandate, the leadership team, managers and the workforce, because in our experience that is where AI programs stall.
For PE Firms, Consultancies, Integrators and Executive Search Firms

Bring us into
your client engagement.

We define the AI mandate or assess the organization as an independent third party. You keep the client relationship and the delivery work.

Explore Partnerships →
The Founders

You work directly
with the founders.

Dr. Ian McCulloh
Dr. Ian McCulloh
Co-Founder

Directs AI executive education at Johns Hopkins University. Former Chief Data Scientist at a Fortune Global 500 company, where he helped build its AI practice. Carnegie Mellon PhD in computer science (AI) and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel.

Maria Chaloux
Maria Chaloux
Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Twenty years in executive search and leadership assessment. Led executive recruiting at a Fortune Global 500 company and built the leadership team behind its AI practice. Founded three executive search firms. SHRM-SCP and Hogan certified.

Meet the Octant team →
What Leaders Say

From leaders who have
worked with us.

“The AI practice Ian helped build at AFS delivered some of the most consequential AI programs across all 15 cabinet-level federal agencies and represents some of the most advanced applications of AI deployed by the U.S. Government.”
LTG (Ret.) Susan Lawrence
Former President & CEO, AFCEA International · Former CIO, U.S. Department of the Army
“Ian has been a driving force in scaling AI and data science capabilities across both the private and public sectors. His ability to navigate complexity, build high-impact AI organizations, and deliver results consistently sets him apart.”
Amir Bagherpour, PhD
Managing Director, Agentic AI, Accenture
Start the Conversation

Find out where AI can create
value in your business.

45 minutes with a founding partner. Tell us what you want AI to do for the business and where it is stuck. We will tell you where to start, or whether we are the right firm for it.

A founder will respond within one business day.