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Arion

Academic Intelligence for higher education

How we work

Most firms won't tell you how they work until you've signed.

Here's ours, in full — before you spend a dollar. Two tracks, eight phases, and two points where you decide whether we go further.

Every engagement is founder-led: the people who scope your work are the people who do it — not a partner who sells and an associate who staffs it. And every engagement is designed to remove surprises, not manage them.
Track One

Advisory

Fixed scope. Fixed price. You know the cost before you start.

Where AI belongs on your campus, what to govern, and in what order — a clear written position your board and senate can stand behind. Many institutions engage us for this alone.

01

Discovery

Weeks 1–2

We map what AI is already happening on your campus, what's being considered, where the pressure is coming from, and which leaders need to be inside the decision.
02

Assessment

Weeks 2–4

Structured work with leadership, operations, and faculty surfaces the real constraints — cultural, structural, political, and regulatory — that any sound AI decision has to account for.
03

Recommendations

Weeks 4–5

A written advisory: what to pursue, what to defer, what to govern, and in what sequence — with the rationale behind each call. Where something is worth building, this includes a high-level requirements document that carries directly into delivery.
04

Alignment

Week 5 onward

We agree on the path, the scope, and the price before anything further begins. Sometimes the right answer is to wait, narrow scope, or govern first — and we'll say so. For institutions that choose to build, this is where we decide together what gets built.

From advisory to delivery

Every custom build reaches us the same way — through advisory. We don't quote or build a solution we haven't scoped. If we're aligned that something is worth building, the engagement moves into delivery — scoped and priced against what we agreed, not guessed at in advance.

Track Two

Delivery

Scoped and priced after Alignment — grounded in real requirements.

Turning an agreed direction into a working solution your team can own. Founder-led throughout, with a written progress update every week — you're never wondering where things stand.

05

Design

Scope & deliverable baseline

We turn the high-level requirements into a detailed design — what we're building, how it works, and how it fits your environment. This is the baseline everything after is built and priced against, so what you approve is what you get.

Your sign-off

You sign off on the design before we write a single line of code.

06

Build

Weekly written updates

Development against the signed design. Because the scope is fixed at design, there are no quiet change-orders — anything new is a decision we make together, in the open.
07

Testing & Sign-off

Real users, not just a checklist

We test the solution against the design — and put it in front of the people who'll actually use it, because an AI tool your staff don't trust has already failed, however well it performs in QA.

Your sign-off

Nothing goes live until you've seen it work and approved it.

08

Handover & Support

Capability, not dependency

We hand the solution to your team with the knowledge to run and own it — that's the point of the work, not an afterthought. Support stays in place through the transition, so the handover is real rather than nominal.

What you can count on

Two sign-offs you control

You approve the design before we build, and the result before we launch. The gates are yours, not ours.

Founder-led, start to finish

The people who scope your engagement are the people who deliver it. Your work is never handed down to a junior associate.

Fixed price on advisory

Advisory engagements are fixed-scope and fixed-price. Delivery is scoped and priced only once the design is agreed — never guessed.

Weekly written updates

Once delivery begins, you get a written progress update every week. No status meetings required to find out where things stand.

Easy to start

Engagements are priced and structured to fit within direct-award and invitational processes where they apply — so you can begin without a lengthy RFP.

Honest counsel

We build AI for this sector — which is exactly why we'll tell you where it doesn't fit. Sometimes the right answer is to wait, or to govern first.

No surprises isn't a promise — it's how the work is built. Two tracks, two sign-offs you hold, and a price you agree to before anything begins. Tell us where your institution is trying to move first, and we'll show you the next step.

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Arion · Academic Intelligence