Tier 2 — AI Swarm Setup Sprint
AI implementation for multi-location marketing, built as a 4-8 week sprint.
A $25,000-50,000 defined-scope build, priced by swarm complexity, with a fixed price agreed before work starts. It architects and deploys the 5 orchestration components — agents with boundaries, shared context layer, brand-voice gate, editorial governance routing, telemetry — inside your marketing operation, with a 30-day operating tail. Your team operates it without us by day 30, and you own every artifact.
30-minute consultation. The call settles scope; the engagement link with the fixed price follows in writing.
The recurring scene
The assessment came back with the shape. The internal team can operate. The architecture step is the gap.
The Tier 1 assessment named the orchestration shape, the 3-5 lever sequence, the source-system inventory, and the compliance overlay coverage. Your CFO has approved the consolidation play. The board’s AI-rollout deadline is in writing. Your internal team has bandwidth to operate the orchestration once it exists.
The architecture step is the gap. Designing a multi-agent system that survives production — agent boundaries that hold, shared context that does not drift, brand-voice gate that catches the drift the producer misses, governance routing that respects per-segment SLAs, telemetry that surfaces the patterns before customer-service does — is a different skill from operating one. The agency offers more retainer. The in-house engineering team has bandwidth for ops, not for architectural design. The Tier 1 assessment surfaced the shape; the build is what ships it.
$25,000-50,000 is priced for VP-level signoff without a board-package re-approval. 4-8 weeks is calibrated to hit the board AI-rollout deadline. The 30-day operating tail is calibrated so the internal team learns the orchestration while it runs in production — not via a documentation handoff after we leave. By day 30 your team operates the swarm; you own every artifact; you can read, modify, and run the orchestration without us.
What gets built
The 5 orchestration components wired across 4-8 weeks, plus 30-day operating tail
The sprint applies the same 5-component checklist the brand thesis names (AI orchestration vs AI tooling) against your specific stack. Multiple agents with explicit boundaries. Shared context layer reading from your canonical master record. Brand-voice gate as a separate model scoring every output before publish. Editorial governance routing with multi-tier queue + role-based routing + published SLA. Telemetry across operational + quality + performance + audit dashboards. The week-by-week cadence ships them.
Week 1 — Scope and architecture
Confirm the 2-5 agents that matter most for your operation. Map agent boundaries, shared context schema, governance routing rules, vendor integrations, telemetry dashboards. Write the architectural spec. Per-architecture references for the spec writing: franchise local SEO orchestration for multi-unit franchises, multi-location SEO architecture for multi-location retail, the 4-axis routing matrix for DTC subscription brands. Your sprint applies the same skeleton to your specific agents and constraints.
Weeks 2-4 — Build the agents
Each agent built and tested in isolation against representative inputs. Brand-voice fine-tuning per agent. Per-channel vendor integrations wired. Initial governance routing configured. Telemetry instrumented from day one rather than retrofitted at the end.
Weeks 5-6 — Wire the swarm
Agents connected through shared context layer and brand-voice gate. End-to-end tests in staging against real (anonymized) data. Edge cases surfaced and handled. Governance routing tuned against representative exceptions. Per-component telemetry validated.
Weeks 7-8 — Deploy and train
Production deployment with controlled rollout (per-location or per-segment ramp for multi-location; per-cohort ramp for DTC). Team training on operation, governance, edge-case handling. Documentation handoff — runbook per agent, brand-voice gate maintenance history, governance routing playbook, telemetry dashboard reference.
Days 1-30 (post-deploy) — Operating support tail
Active operation alongside your team for the first 30 days in production. Tuning based on real outputs. Brand-voice gate refinement. Governance routing adjustments. Telemetry threshold tuning. Your team learns the operation while it runs in production. By day 30 your team takes over (or converts to Tier 3 Fractional).
When this is the right tier
Three buyer states fit the Setup Sprint
- CFO consolidation play. You currently spread spend across review-response, local-content, social-management, attribution, and feed-management vendors. The Tier 2 build replaces or wraps several of those into one orchestrated stack with operator-owned governance. CFO approves the consolidation against the annualized vendor stack cost. Internal team operates after handoff.
- Board-mandated AI rollout with deadline. Strategic priority requires a working AI capability in production within a quarter. The 4-8 week Tier 2 cadence hits that timeline with a defined scope and a fixed price. Board gets the AI-rollout deliverable; CMO gets the operating orchestration.
- Strong internal team, focused execution gap. Your team can operate AI systems but lacks the architectural experience to design a multi-agent swarm that survives production — the boundaries-drift, shared-context-divergence, brand-voice-gate-config, governance-routing-tuning, telemetry-threshold-calibration problems that take 2-3 production cycles to learn the hard way. Sprint solves that one capability gap; team takes over from there.
When this is not the right tier: companies still in research mode (start with Tier 1 Assessment), or buyers who want ongoing executive governance without building internal capacity (Tier 3 Fractional is the right shape).
What changes
What you walk out with after 8 weeks + the 30-day tail
First 2 agents in production with documented swap/replace runbook per agent. Shared context layer reading from your canonical master record — the data spine that prevents per-agent context drift. Brand-voice gate emitting on every publish with the per-output score + the dimension that drove the pass/fail attached. Editorial governance routing live with multi-tier queue + role-based routing + published SLA. Telemetry across operational + quality + performance + audit dashboards — the layer that lets you defend the system to a regulator, an investor, or an internal stakeholder with structured evidence rather than narrative.
The orchestration shape exists in production, not on the slide deck. The board AI-rollout deliverable is live. The CFO consolidation play has the vendor stack reduced. The internal team operates the swarm without us by day 30.
Every artifact ownership transfers cleanly: code, prompts, configs, agent specifications, vendor integrations, brand-voice tunings, governance routing rules, telemetry dashboards, playbooks, training materials, internal documentation. Your team can read, modify, and run the orchestration without us — or convert to Tier 3 Fractional for ongoing executive governance.
The other entry points
Each tier funnels into the next. None requires the next.
Tier 1 — Diagnostic
AI Readiness Assessment (2-3 weeks)
Diagnostic only — written plan + 4-question diagnostic + 5-component orchestration shape checklist + decision. Often the right first step before this Setup Sprint.
Tier 3 — Ongoing
Fractional CMO with AI Swarm (6-month minimum)
Embedded executive who operates the swarm, governs it, evolves it across quarters. The lead offer for buyers who want ongoing executive governance.
Frequently asked
- How is this different from the Fractional CMO engagement?
- The Setup Sprint is one-time and bounded — architects and deploys the swarm, then hands operation to your team after a 30-day support tail. The Fractional engagement is ongoing — same architecting, plus operating, tuning, evolving, and executive-in-the-loop reporting across quarters. Setup Sprint is right when you have an internal team that can take over operation; Fractional is right when you want an executive to govern the swarm continuously.
- How is this different from the AI Readiness Assessment?
- The Assessment (2-3 weeks) is a diagnostic — written plan, no build. The Setup Sprint (4-8 weeks) is execution — working agents in production with the 5-component orchestration shape (multiple agents with boundaries + shared context layer + brand-voice gate + editorial governance routing + telemetry) wired and deployed. Most buyers do the Assessment first to scope what to build; some skip straight to Setup Sprint when the orchestration shape is already clear.
- How is pricing handled?
- The sprint runs $25,000-50,000, and where you land in the range reflects swarm complexity — a smaller scope (review response + local content on top of an existing vendor stack) sits at the bottom; a 5-agent setup with custom governance, vendor consolidation, and team training sits at the top. The 30-minute consultation settles scope, and the engagement link carries a fixed price — no hourly drift. For context: the Tier 1 diagnostic is $10,000 and Tier 3 runs $15,000-25,000 per month.
- What does the 30-day operating support tail cover?
- Active operation of the swarm in production for 30 days after deploy — agent tuning based on real outputs, brand-voice gate refinement, governance routing adjustments, edge-case handling, telemetry threshold tuning. Your team learns the operation alongside us. After day 30, you take over (or convert to Tier 3 Fractional CMO). The 30-day tail is included in the engagement structure, not a separate retainer.
- Who is this for, and who is it not for?
- For: companies that have decided AI is core, want a working multi-agent system in production within 60 days, and have an internal team capable of taking over operation after handoff. Often a CFO consolidation play (replace 4 vendor contracts with one orchestrated stack), a board-mandated AI rollout with deadline, or a strong internal team with a focused execution gap (can operate AI but cannot architect a multi-agent swarm that survives production). Not for: companies still in research mode (start with Tier 1 Assessment), or buyers who want ongoing executive governance without building internal capacity (Tier 3 Fractional is the right shape).
- What happens to the artifacts?
- You own everything — code, prompts, configs, agent specifications, vendor integrations, brand-voice tunings, governance routing rules, telemetry dashboards, playbooks, training materials, internal documentation. No consulting-vendor lock-in. Your team can read, modify, and run the swarm without us by day 30.
- How fast can the sprint start?
- Sprints typically begin within 2-4 weeks of contract signing. Sequencing depends on whether the Tier 1 Assessment was done first (faster start, scope is clear, day-one architecture work begins immediately) or whether scoping happens in week 1 of the sprint itself.
- What does Completions commit to during the 4-8 weeks?
- Process commitments include: Week 1 architectural spec delivered + agreed; weeks 2-4 each agent built + tested in isolation with brand-voice gate emitting; weeks 5-6 swarm wired end-to-end with shared context + governance routing live + telemetry instrumented; weeks 7-8 production deploy with controlled rollout (per-location or per-segment ramp) + team training + documentation handoff; days 1-30 operating support tail with active tuning alongside your team. Per-agent precision is tuned per stack and recorded as engagement KPIs.
Scope the Tier 2 sprint
$25,000-50,000, fixed after the 30-minute scoping call. Same person reads every submission the form records; if the confirmation reports a failure, please try again shortly.
Before you take any of this on faith
The method is visible rather than asserted. howtothink.ai is a public knowledge graph built solo and running in production — 1,700 atomic lessons, roughly 8,100 pages, 3,300+ graph edges. It is our own build rather than a client result, which is the point: it is the part you can inspect yourself before anyone asks you for money.
Related reading
The brand thesis the Tier 2 sprint ships, plus the per-persona architecture references the sprint applies to your specific stack:
- AI orchestration vs AI tooling — the 5-component checklist the sprint ships against.
- Franchise local SEO orchestration — example architecture for franchise sprints.
- Multi-location SEO architecture — example architecture for multi-location retail sprints.
- Multi-dimensional threshold routing — example governance shape for DTC subscription sprints.
- Master-record sync — the shared context layer the sprint wires.
- AI Readiness Assessment (Tier 1) — the diagnostic that scopes the sprint.