We rescue
We rescue AI projects that went sideways.
Sometimes bad things happen to good projects. That was true when we started rescuing software builds years ago, and it is just as true now that the projects have AI in the name. No lectures about what should have been done. We find what's broken, fix what matters, and leave you with something maintained.
The messes we see most.
- The abandoned chatbot. Launched with fanfare, answers wrong or answers nobody, and now lives on the website like a broken doorbell.
- The agency build nobody maintains. The build was fine, the handoff never happened, and now no one at your company knows how it works or what it costs.
- The automation that silently stopped. It worked in March. Nobody can say when it stopped. The invoices it was chasing went unchased.
- The AI spend with no return. Licenses, consultants, a pilot or two. Real money out, nothing measurable back, and nobody willing to call it.
Two phases, in the order that protects you.
Phase 1: Quick analysis
Short and fixed-fee. We read the code, the accounts, the prompts, and the invoices, and come back with a plain-language verdict: what you own, what state it's in, what it costs to run, and whether it deserves to live. If the honest answer is "turn it off," you hear that here, for the small fee, not after six more months of spend.
Phase 2: Focused sprints
If it deserves to live, we fix the most critical problems first, in short sprints with visible results. Stabilize, add monitoring so failures are loud instead of silent, document what exists, and hand it back maintained. You can stop after any sprint. That's the point of sprints.
Rescue questions, answered plainly
Our agency built an AI tool and disappeared. Can you take it over?
Usually, yes. We start by reading what they left behind: the code, the accounts, the prompts, the bills. Then we tell you what you actually own, what state it is in, and what it would cost to stabilize versus rebuild versus retire. You get that assessment before you commit to anything bigger.
How do we know if our automations are still working?
If nobody is monitoring them, you probably don't. Automations fail silently: the follow-up emails stop, the reports quietly go stale, and you find out from an annoyed customer weeks later. Part of every rescue is putting monitoring in place so silence means healthy, not broken.
We spent real money on AI and can't point to any return. Is that normal?
It is common, which is different from normal. The usual causes are picking a showpiece project instead of a boring valuable one, skipping the measurement step, or building something staff never adopted. The fix starts with an honest accounting of what was spent and what it produced. Sometimes the verdict is to keep and fix. Sometimes it is to stop paying for it.
What does the analysis phase cost?
A small fixed fee on a short timeline, agreed up front. It is deliberately cheap relative to the sprints because you should not have to make a big commitment to find out how bad things are. If the analysis says the cheapest fix is to switch the thing off, we will say so and you can stop there.
Did you invent this rescue service for AI projects?
No. We have been rescuing software projects with this same two-phase approach since long before AI was the thing going sideways. The failure patterns are familiar; only the technology is new. That history is most of why we are calm about it.
Tell us what happened.
No judgment on the call. Describe the project, we'll tell you whether it's a rescue, a rebuild, or a decent burial.
or call (828) 201-4226 / email hello@aitako.com