I help CEOs and exec teams leverage AI to transform their companies
and dodge the chaotic hype that wastes time and money
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"From where we were in February to where we are now, there's a complete difference. The majority of engineering is completely converted. We see a stark difference now."
Read the Instem case study →"Chris helped us build a production LLM meal generator that made our customers happier and increased revenue. Our AI system reduced customer plan changes by 30% (meaning happier customers) and increased basket usage by 14% (meaning more revenue per customer)."
Read full case study →"We were recommended some large organisations for AI training. But in the end, we used Chris, and he's been great. We've had some fantastic outcomes so far."
Read the VenturEd case study →"The team and I have really benefited from and enjoyed working with Chris. He has worked cross functionally to raise our organisational AI maturity, increasing both our internal productivity and effectiveness, and clarifying the path to production for our agentic tooling. Would recommend as a great way to augment internal capabilities."
Read the Genomics case study →
I've been a CTO and founder. I've scaled companies whilst building production AI systems and transformed delivery using AI tools.
Scaled teams from 5-50. Built agencies, B2B, and B2C startups. VC-backed and bootstrapped experience.
Production AI systems with full evaluation frameworks, not demos. Real systems serving 500K+ users.
25 years in tech leadership. I go into organisations and deliver value fast, for leaders who need results now.
"Chris has a wealth of experience on both the CTO side and the AI-enablement side. He's fun to work with, thoughtful and sitting at the cutting edge."
"If you're looking for someone to help build a great team, or you need someone experienced to help develop a sound tech strategy, I would thoroughly recommend Chris."
"Chris has helped me and my teams stay up to date and re-imagine what is possible. He's demonstrated novel ways to get the most out of the new technology on many occasions."
"Great person to go to to work out what really works and what doesn't in AI for software development and the wider business."
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Hype-free AI deep-dives for leaders. Every past session is written up in full, and the next date lands in the newsletter first
Read the write-ups →design+AI: September 2026
Beyond Vibe Coding: From prototyping to shipping like an engineer
Read about talk → See all talks →Three evaluation frameworks built
From Cherrypick's meal generator to complex internal tools, I build systems with robust evaluation from day one
Read case study →"I joined Chris's webinar on using Claude skills to run parts of his business and it genuinely blew my mind. I spent the entire weekend trying to get AI to run my life as well."
"I highly recommend Chris Parsons' AI webinars, they are at the cutting-edge, while at the same time incredibly grounded and practical."
This post is based on a workshop given on 24th September 2026 at design+AI.
Building a working prototype with AI is easy now: ask Claude to build you something cool and it will. Shipping that prototype, so that it is live and useful and does not fall over, is a different problem. On Thursday I spent a morning in Brighton with a room of designers and product people working through the practices engineers rely on to make that second part possible. We did not write any code ourselves. The agent did all of that. Our job is simply knowing what to ask for.
For a long time I have wanted to hand AI a senior job. When I was a CTO, this was the kind of work I would have delegated to a head of department: take a loosely described outcome, work out what it really needs, split it up, get other people to do the pieces, and come back with something finished while I got on with my own work.
That goal has been elusive for years. Until very recently, the best description of an AI model was an overeager junior. Delegating to one meant giving it lots of context, and then watching it closely. That was fine, but frustrating.
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