About

Practical AI implementation for mid-market operations

DevTel AI is a consulting practice that builds AI systems for businesses with real operational problems to solve, not technology experiments to run.

What we do

AI that reduces work without creating new work to manage

Most AI implementations at mid-market companies fail for the same reasons: they start in the wrong place, they're scoped too broadly, or they produce systems that the team doesn't trust or use.

DevTel AI was built to address this directly. We work with a narrow scope, specifically companies with 50–500 employees that have identified operational inefficiencies and want to understand whether AI is the right tool to address them.

We start with your workflows, not a product. We scope to specific, measurable outcomes. We build systems that integrate with tools you already use. We build and deploy the system ourselves, then support it. The deliverable is a running system, not a strategy document.

Implementation, not just advice
We build the systems ourselves, not a roadmap that someone else has to execute.
Mid-market focus
Built for companies with 50–500 employees, not enterprise scale and not startups. This range has specific operational constraints and opportunities.
Integration over replacement
We build AI systems that work with your existing tools. We don't sell you a new platform to run your business on.
Outcome-based scoping
Projects are scoped to deliver a measurable outcome. We define success criteria before we start building.

How we work

Operating principles

Start with the workflow

We don't arrive with a preferred technology and find a problem to fit it. We start with how your business actually operates, then determine whether and how AI applies.

Deliver working systems, not reports

Strategy documents have a role, but the outcome of every engagement is something that runs in production and changes how work gets done. Not a slide deck with recommendations.

Build for the team that has to use it

An AI system that your team avoids is a failed implementation regardless of what it's technically capable of. We design for adoption, not demos.

Be direct about what AI can and can't do

AI is genuinely useful in specific contexts. It also fails in predictable ways when applied outside those contexts. We tell you both and design systems that account for the failure modes.

Who we work with

Companies that have a specific problem, not a general interest in AI

Our clients typically come to us with one of a small number of situations: a manual process consuming significant team time, institutional knowledge at risk due to turnover, or decision-making constrained by inaccessible data.

They're usually business owners, CFOs, COOs, or operations leaders at companies with 50–500 employees. They've heard enough about AI to know it might apply to their problem, but not enough to know where to start or what it would actually take.

That's exactly where we start.

Typical client profile

Company size
50–500 employees
Industries
Professional services, distribution, healthcare admin, manufacturing, financial services
Decision maker
Business owner, COO, CFO, VP Operations, IT Director
Starting point
Identified operational problem with a manual or scattered-data root cause
Not a fit
Companies looking to explore AI broadly with no specific problem to solve

Want the longer version? Read the Founder's Note →

Have a specific problem in mind?

The AI Assessment is designed to answer two questions: Is AI the right tool for this? If yes, where should we start?