Munich · Fractional CTO · Agentic AI Architect

Turn AI ambition into production systems.

In a quarter, not a year. Twenty years building production software. The last five, building AI systems that actually shipped.

Book a clarity call→

§ 01 — Masthead

Scroll 01 / 07

A looping ribbon of official AI platform, agent framework, observability, vector database, and infrastructure logos.

§ 02 — Thesis

You’ve put AI on the roadmap. Pilots went well enough. Production didn’t. A year has passed. The gap between “we’re exploring AI” and “this changed the business” is not a model choice — it’s architecture, governance, and the discipline to ship. That’s the work I do.

— For founders past Series A.

— Teams of 10 to 150 engineers.

— Europe, UK, United States.

§ 03 — Practice

Six ways to work together. Three primary. Three precision.

Every engagement is fixed-scope, fixed-date, and backed by a deliverable guarantee. Pick the one that matches what you actually need — or we’ll figure that out on the first call.

01 / Flagship

Ongoing · 3-month min.

Fractional CTO.

A senior technical partner on your team — without a full-time hire.

One or two days a week, for at least three months. Strategy, architecture, hiring, vendor selection, board-level communication. Day 30 you hold a written technical roadmap, ready for your board. Day 90 your first production release ships, or the engagement’s #1 technical risk is closed.

Discuss this engagement→

Guarantee: written roadmap by Day 30 — or month one is on me.

02 / Flagship

6 weeks · fixed scope

Agentic AI Strategy & Architecture.

End-to-end architecture for an agentic system you can actually build.

Six weeks, one deliverable: a complete architecture package. Agent topology, orchestration, tool design, guardrails, evaluation strategy, observability, cost model, and build/buy decisions. Closed out by a ninety-minute executive readout your leadership actually sits through.

Discuss this engagement→

Guarantee: package delivered by week 6.

03 / Flagship

4–6 weeks · fixed scope

Production AI System Design.

The architecture for an AI system that won’t embarrass you in production.

Four to six weeks, fixed scope. You receive the full system architecture, a reference implementation of the riskiest component, an evaluation harness, and a cost-per-request model. Ready to hand to your engineering team — not a diagram they’ll have to translate.

Discuss this engagement→

Guarantee: design package by week 6.

Also available

04

2 weeks

AI Readiness Assessment.

A prioritized, honest view of where AI moves your business — and where it doesn’t. Interviews across ops, product, and engineering; opportunity map; 90-day action plan.

Guarantee: report within 14 days.

Discuss→

05

10 days

Architecture Review & Modernization.

Independent review of your current architecture, with a prioritized plan you can act on. Straight talk about trade-offs, costs, and what to stop doing.

Guarantee: report on day 10.

Discuss→

06

5–10 days

Technical Due Diligence.

Investor-grade technical assessment for deals where the “AI moat” actually matters. Architecture, team, delivery, security, AI capabilities, red flags. Plain English for the IC.

Guarantee: report by day 10.

Discuss→

§ 04 — Method

From “AI is on our radar” to AI in production. In four movements.

No four-month discovery. No 80-slide deck. No pyramid where the senior name sells the work and a junior delivers it. One senior operator, moving at the speed of your business.

One call · One week

Understand.

A 30-minute call, then one week to map the situation, the stakeholders, and the constraints. Honestly. If we’re not a fit, you know before we hang up.

Two weeks · Written artefact

Decide.

Surface the two or three decisions that actually matter. A ranked, written recommendation — not a wishlist, not a deck. What to do, what to defer, and what to stop doing altogether.

The engagement proper

Ship.

Architecture, execution guidance, the difficult conversations that come up in real delivery. I stay involved while the work happens. You won’t have to re-explain the context every week.

90-minute readout · 30 days async

Follow through.

A live executive readout your leadership sits through in person, then thirty days of async availability for follow-up questions. No retainer trap. You renew because it’s working — not because a contract says you have to.

§ 05 — Evidence

The work, in numbers. Then in detail.

€50M+

In technology budgets advised.

  • 15 production AI systems shipped.
  • 40 leadership teams across fintech, legal-tech, manufacturing, and B2B SaaS.
  • 20 years of engineering, architecture, and delivery leadership.

Case 01 · Agentic AI

Series B fintech · Berlin

A stuck agentic demo, shipped in eleven weeks.

The situation

A working demo of an agentic customer-support system had sat in staging for six months. It worked for the founder. It drifted in front of real users. Launch was stuck.

What I did

Redesigned the orchestration. Introduced tool-level guardrails. Added an evaluation harness and instrumented cost-per-conversation tracking end to end.

11 wk

To launch

68%

Auto-resolved

−42%

Cost per conv.

“We had a working AI demo for six months and no idea how to ship it. Artem rewrote our agent architecture in three weeks and we were in production inside the quarter.”

— CTO, Series B fintech, Berlin

Case 02 · AI strategy

Fortune 500 manufacturer

Six competing vendors. Two weeks to clarity.

The situation

A board-mandated “AI strategy” with no clear starting point. Six competing vendor pitches on the table and €2.4M of planned AI spend about to commit.

What I did

Two-week AI Readiness Assessment. Interviews across ops, finance, and product. A prioritized opportunity map (impact × feasibility × risk) and a 90-day action plan the executive committee signed off in one sitting.

4 / 6

Vendors cut

€2.4M

Reallocated

90 d

To ship

“The first person who told us what to stop doing, not just what to try next.”

— SVP, strategy, Fortune 500 manufacturer

Case 03 · Technical DD

Early-stage VC · B2B SaaS deal

The “AI moat” that wasn’t. Seven days under the hood.

The situation

A growth-stage investment in an AI-native B2B SaaS. Founders claimed a proprietary agent architecture as the core moat. The investment committee wanted proof.

What I did

Seven-business-day Technical Due Diligence. Architecture review, evaluation of the moat claim, team and delivery assessment. Plain-English report to the IC within the quarter-end window.

3

Risks flagged

€3M

Valuation adj.

Closed w/
covenants

Outcome

“Before we wired the investment, we asked Artem to look under the hood. His report saved us from a bet we would have regretted. Now we use him on every AI-heavy deal.”

— Partner, early-stage VC, London

Artem A. Semenov, Fractional CTO and Agentic AI Architect, Munich.
Artem A. Semenov · Munich · 2026

§ 06 — About

The short version.

I’m a senior technology leader based in Munich, working internationally with founders and B2B leaders building the next serious chapter of their company.

Twenty years of engineering, architecture, and delivery leadership — across enterprise software, modern cloud platforms, and now production agentic AI. Today’s focus: helping companies design and ship AI systems safe to put in front of customers and cheap enough to run at scale.

Most people selling AI advice today are new to AI, new to senior leadership, or both. I spent two decades building and leading serious software before agentic AI became a category. I apply the same discipline to it.

§ 07 — Correspondence

The decisions you make in the next six months will shape the next three years.

And the cost of delaying a clear conversation is higher than the cost of having one.

·  Most calls booked within 72 hours.

·  No preparation required. Confidential.

·  No invoice unless you leave with more clarity than you came in with.

Book a 30-minute call

Munich · Replies within 24 hours

No pitch. No pressure. No prepared materials required.

§ Also · Frequently asked

The things prospective clients actually ask on the first call.

What does this cost? +

Engagements are priced to scope after our first conversation. I don’t publish rates — a two-week Readiness Assessment and a three-month Fractional CTO engagement aren’t comparable, and public numbers mean nothing out of context. On the first call I’ll tell you straight whether the scope you need fits the budget you have. If it doesn’t, I’ll say so.

Who is this not for? +

Not a fit: teams shopping for cheap hours, chasing AI for its own sake, or wanting someone to validate a decision they’ve already made. I’m direct about this on the first call, so nobody wastes time.

Good fit: companies where the leadership is serious, the business is real, and the decisions being made actually matter — including governance, evaluation, and production readiness when AI is going in front of customers.

What if it doesn’t work out? +

Three guarantees are designed so you carry almost none of the risk:

— Clarity Call Guarantee. The first 30-minute call costs nothing. If you don’t leave with more clarity than you came in with, there’s no follow-up and no invoice.

— Fixed-Scope Deliverable Guarantee. Every fixed-scope engagement (Assessment, Architecture, Design, Review, DD) has a committed deliverable by a committed date.

— Fractional CTO 30-Day Guarantee. If by Day 30 you don’t have a written technical roadmap in hand, month one is on me.

Why you and not a tier-1 consultancy or a boutique AI firm? +

— One senior operator, not a pyramid. You get me, not a senior name on the SOW with junior delivery.

— Executive judgment and architecture depth. Most AI consultancies have one or the other. Very few have both.

— Accountability by deliverable. Every fixed-scope engagement has a committed artefact and a committed date. Consultancies charge by the hour; I charge by the outcome.

How fast can we start? +

Most first conversations happen within a few days of booking, depending on calendar availability. First deliverable — by service — within ten business days (Review, DD) to six weeks (full architecture design). You do not pay for a four-month “discovery phase.”