Build

AI Assembly

A delivery engagement that takes one prioritized business case and builds it into production AI, using the lean, user-centered Labs practices our team grew up on, adapted for ML and AI, and captured into a context layer that makes every future build faster.

Duration6 to 12 weeks per slice
FormatDiscovery & Framing, Ship, Iterate
OutcomeProduction AI
The opportunity

Where the roadmap becomes a working system

The Primer tells you what to build. AI Assembly takes the top thin slice, stands up a balanced team alongside yours, and gets it live fast. Then we iterate on the real system. Reaching production early is the point: it turns opinion into evidence and starts returning value while we refine.

00 wks
Kickoff to a slice live in production
0 team
Balanced, forward deployed, embedded with yours
Day two
Operations and evals built in from day one
Who it is for

Leaders with a prioritized opportunity who want it built and in production, whether their team takes ownership or they want us to run it, not handed off as a slide deck.

When to run it

Straight after an AI Primer, or any time you have a validated, high-value use case and need a team that can take it from concept to production with confidence.

Not a prototype that stalls in a demo

A vertical slice, built to be operated

A vertical slice

Through the whole stack - just enough data, model and application to reach production.

Built to be operated

Day Two operations and evals are in place from the first release, not bolted on later.

Made to compound

Scoped so it returns value early and sets up the next slice to go faster.

One principle guides the work: we build AI that delivers measurable business value, scoped as a thin slice that reaches production fast and improves through iteration. We avoid building AI for AI's sake.

A proven method, built for AI

Born from Pivotal Labs, rebuilt for AI

Most of our method is not new. It comes from Pivotal Labs, the go-to engineering partner for venture-backed startups, building software with companies like Twitter, Uber, Salesforce and Google. When Pivotal was folded into VMware, Strongly's founders left to take its practices where the hardest problems had moved: AI and ML.

0
Pivotal Labs founded in San Francisco
0/yr
Companies it built products with
0
Strongly spun out to focus on AI and ML
01

A context layer that compounds

Every framing and modeling exercise is captured into an ontology, so the next slice starts further ahead.

02

Built for ML and AI software

Behavior validated with evals, model strategy and data grounding as first-class decisions, MLOps in the definition of done.

03

We can build it and run it

Pairing and knowledge transfer are optional. We can build the slice and operate it for you in production.

Discovery & framing workshops that feed the build

Event Storming The Swift Method Boris & SNAP Path to Production Mapping Story Mapping Risks & Mitigations Premortem → mapped into the context layer
The context layer

Every build makes the next one easier

As we run discovery, model the domain and make decisions, we map the findings into a persistent ontology: your entities, systems, data sources, terminology and the decisions behind them. This is what separates AI Assembly from a one-off project.

Captured once

Domain, data, systems and decisions, mapped as you build.

Reused every slice

Agents and teams start each slice with real context, not guesswork.

Compounding return

Each build is faster and cheaper than the last.

The flywheel, with context as its mass
1
2
3
4
Context
layer
1
Ship & capture

A slice ships, and its domain is captured into the context layer.

2
Capture ROI

The slice returns measurable value in production.

3
Reuse the layer

The next slice is quicker to frame and build on the captured domain.

4
Fund the next

Start the next slice further ahead than the last.

Where a standard Labs engagement leaves behind documents and a trained team, AI Assembly also leaves behind a living model of your organization that every future agent and project draws on.

The engagement

Discovery and framing, then ship and iterate

AI Assembly runs the complete Labs flow for one use case, from framing through to a system running in production.

FramingShipIterate
Phase 1 · Discovery & Framing
Frame one thin slice
  • Outcome and KPI confirmed
  • Domain modeled into the context layer
  • Data readiness and access verified
  • Path to production agreed
  • A backlog of outcome-oriented stories
Phase 2 · Ship to production
Live in weeks, not months
  • A working slice deployed to your cloud, VPC or on premises
  • CI/CD from week one
  • Monitoring, evals and guardrails at first release
Phase 3 · Iterate in production
Improve the live system
  • Weekly IPM, standups, demo and retro
  • Test and eval driven, priorities from real usage
  • Governance and human-in-the-loop matured
  • Operated by your team, or managed by Strongly
Day Two from day one

Built to run, not just to ship

A model in production is the start, not the finish. AI Assembly plans Day Two from the start, so the slice keeps delivering value after go-live.

Keep it healthy

Monitoring, observability and alerting on the live system - dashboards, latency and uptime, incident alerting.

Keep it accurate

Evals in CI, with drift and quality checks on every change, and human-in-the-loop review.

Keep it efficient

Model routing by cost and task, caching to cut repeat calls, and spend dashboards and budgets.

Option A · Your team operates it

We pair with your engineers, hand over runbooks and the Day Two playbook, and your team owns and runs the slice from go-live.

Option B · Strongly runs it for you

We run and maintain the slice as a managed service, so you get the outcome without standing up a team. Covered in depth by AI Day Two.

Your deliverables

What you walk away with

A working AI use case in production, the assets to operate it, and a context layer that makes the next build faster. Everything is yours to keep.

  • A production AI solution

    The thin slice live in your environment and serving real value.

  • An evaluation & guardrail suite

    Behavior validated and protected, running in CI.

  • Context layer extensions

    Your domain, data and decisions mapped for reuse by future builds and agents.

  • A path to production pipeline

    CI/CD for the slice and the models behind it.

  • Monitoring & operations runbooks

    Dashboards, alerts and the Day Two playbook to run it.

  • An enabled team, if you want one

    Engineers and analysts who can extend and operate it, or we run it for you.

And the next slice teed up
  • The domain model and ontology, reused as-is
  • Data sources and access already mapped
  • The platform, CI/CD and MLOps in place
  • Evals and guardrails as a starting baseline
  • A team that has already shipped one slice
Illustrative first slice

6 to 12 weeks to live and serving, operable on day one, with context captured so the next build is faster.

Why Strongly

The people, process and platform to ship and run it

AI Assembly does not end with a handoff. We bring the people, the process and the platform to take a use case into production and keep it running.

People

Forward deployed engineers build the slice, from discovery through production.

  • Born from Pivotal and A42 Labs
  • A balanced team extended with ML and AI engineering
  • Knowledge transfer built in, or we run it for you

Process

The Labs practices we grew up on, applied to thin slices that reach production fast.

  • Balanced teams, weekly rhythm and pairing
  • Every exercise feeds the context layer
  • Day Two operations planned from the start

Platform

Workflows, AI apps and MLOps to take a slice to production and keep it running.

  • Model factory and model registry
  • Routing and caching
  • Your cloud, your VPC or on premises
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Of enterprise transformation experience
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Faster from idea to production
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Lower AI spend through routing and caching
From roadmap to running AI Primer AI Assembly AI Day Two

Turn a business problem into a production AI solution

Scope an AI Assembly and turn a prioritized business problem into a live, production solution - built with you, or run for you.

or email sales@strongly.ai