We go live inside four weeks, and the retainer stays free until the agent hits the outcome we wrote into your contract addendum.
Onboarding moves from contract signature to autonomous operation in four weeks, and the 60-day outcome window opens on the first day of live operation. Every step below is described as it actually runs, including the part most vendors keep quiet about: what we are doing in shadow mode and what happens if we miss the outcome.
Discovery, integration, shadow mode, autonomous operation.
Discovery, where we sit with you for ninety minutes on Google Meet, document how the function runs in your firm today, and quantify the outcome the agent will be accountable to. The result is a one-page brief signed by you with the metric, the timeline, and the boundaries spelled out, which becomes the contract addendum the 60-day outcome window measures against.
Integration, where we connect to the tools you already use (Xero, Sage, Pipedrive, HubSpot, Outlook, Google Workspace, WhatsApp Business) without asking you to transfer any logins, brief the agent on your firm's voice and your partner-cluster sign-off rules, and stand up the eval suite that will measure the outcome agreed in week one.
Shadow mode, where the agent runs alongside your team, copies you on every action it takes, and you correct in real time wherever its judgement does not match yours. Most of the calibration that matters happens here, and most agents need fewer than ten partner corrections before going live.
Live operation. The agent operates autonomously inside the boundaries you signed off in week one, the 60-day outcome window opens on the first day of live operation, and weekly reporting begins, sent to whichever person on your team owns the function.
Week three is where we earn the right to ship live.
Shadow mode means the agent runs alongside your team, copies you on every action it would take, and waits for you to correct or approve before anything actually moves. Most calibration that matters happens here, the partner reads the first ten message drafts the Chief Reception Officer would send, the first three reconciliation passes the Chief Bookkeeping Officer would run, the first five candidate screens the Chief Recruitment Officer would pass forward. Fewer than ten corrections in shadow mode is normal; if we are not there by Friday of week three, we do not ship live, we extend the calibration.
The number you sign off on in discovery, or we work for free until we hit it.
Discovery quantifies a single specific outcome per agent. The number gets locked in writing in the one-page brief you sign at the end of week one of onboarding, and the 60-day outcome window opens on the first day of live operation. If the agent has not hit the agreed outcome by day 60, we keep working at no further cost until it does, with the work-for-free clause sitting in the contract addendum rather than in marketing copy.
We can promise this because we cap C-Suite AI onboarding intake to the agents we can actually deliver against in any given quarter. Overbooking would mean missing outcomes for everyone, which is the version of this offer that would not survive its first quarter of operation, so the cap is what makes the 60-day promise something you can read as a real commitment instead of a marketing claim.
Your logins stay yours, and the exit is clean by design.
You keep your SARS, Xero, Sage, payroll, calendar, and CRM logins because we never ask you to transfer them, and the agent operates as a delegated user inside accounts you already own with the permissions you set and the right to revoke at any time. If you cancel, you give 30 days notice, the agent stops on the date you specify, every prompt and integration we built specifically for you transfers across in the handover, and you walk away with no release fee, no exit charge, and no two-week wait while we “find the credentials.”
Where this can go wrong, and how it is handled.
Most vendors do not name the failure modes out loud. We do, because the version of this story we have heard from too many South African partners is the reason we are set up this way.
A tool the partner did not mention in discovery turns out to be load-bearing in week two. We flag it inside 24 hours, scope a side-build before the 60-day window opens, and never let scope drift eat the outcome guarantee.
The work the agent picks up is exactly the work the partner intended to delegate. The work the partner did not intend to delegate stays with the partner. We will tell you in week three if your version of the boundary is going to make the agent useless, and we will renegotiate the brief rather than ship something that does not work.
The agent writes in a register that is close but not yours. Shadow mode catches this in week three, and a small set of corrections (usually fewer than ten) gets the voice locked. If we cannot get there in shadow mode, we do not ship live.
The work-for-free clause kicks in the day after. We keep working at no further cost until the outcome agreed in week one is hit. The clause sits in the contract addendum rather than in marketing copy.
Tell us which function is taking the most senior time in your firm.
Discovery is fifteen minutes on Google Meet that ends with a one-page brief regardless of whether you sign anything.