AI adoption for leadership teams
Most companies already bought the AI. The pilot stalled, the seats sit unused, the habits never formed. I work inside leadership teams to turn AI from a line item into how the work gets done.
Work with me
When a rollout stalls, the problem is rarely the model. It's the workflow around it. And the longer it sits stalled, the more the spend runs ahead of the habits. I've taken AI companies through three pivots, I teach this at UC San Diego's Rady School of Management, and I do the same work inside companies like yours.
Embedded engagement
Signature
I join your leadership team for a defined sprint. We pick the workflows where AI pays off, deploy it inside them, and build the habits that keep it running after I leave. Your roadmap, your data, your tools.
Leadership workshop
One day
A working session with your leadership team. You leave with your AI use cases ranked by payoff and a 90-day plan for the first one.
Selected work
A 40-person AI adoption workshop for a Massachusetts business-advisory firm.
Internal tools and AI workflows built for smaller professional-services firms.
Lead TA for the MBA program at UC San Diego's Rady School of Management.
A short call about whether this fits your situation.
I keep capacity for a small number of engagements at a time. If I'm booked, I'll tell you straight.
Track record
Three pivots in twenty-three months taught me exactly where AI projects stall: not in the technology, but in the gap between buying it and using it. That experience is what you're hiring.
UniWise · ContraSight
AI for clinical administrative spend. Three pivots in twenty-three months, $450K raised across angel and friends-and-family rounds, first place at UC San Diego Demo Day 2025, converted to Public Benefit Corporation. Wound down operations January 2026.
“First place at UC San Diego Demo Day 2025, the celebration of a decade of student innovation at The Basement.”— UC San Diego Today
$450K
Raised
1st
Demo Day 2025
PBC
Public Benefit Corp
23
Months run
Pivot log
v1
2024
Calendar AI for students
Founding thesis. Built, shipped, learned the market wasn't there.
v2
Mid-2024
Operations copilot for SMBs
Pivoted toward paying buyers. Friction inside the buyer's stack killed velocity.
v3
2025
Clinical administrative spend
Final form. Demo Day winner, converted to Public Benefit Corporation, wound down January 2026. The adoption lessons became the consulting practice.
Shipped
The advice stays honest because I still ship. Consulting is the practice; these products are where I test what I recommend.
Mauralink · In build
A hiring assessment that measures whether a candidate and their manager will actually work well together, validated against 367 published studies in organizational psychology. In design partnership with early customers.
Halfshade
Strips names and identity from documents so you can run AI over client files without leaking personal information. PDF, DOCX, XLSX, CSV in; redacted markdown out.
clients.esfandiari.dev/halfshade →llmstxt.dev
A directory of llms.txt files in the wild: the emerging standard for telling AI how to read your site. Built in a weekend.
llmstxt.dev →The AI Pragmatist
Each issue covers what shipped, what it means for your business, and what to do Monday morning. Written for non-technical leaders who need signal without jargon.
Selected essays
Book a fit check
Rady MBA in progress. Panelist for UC San Diego's AI Council and Red Bull Basement Innovators. Based in San Diego, working with teams anywhere.
Book a fit check
Thirty minutes on where AI is stalling for your team and whether I'm the right person to fix it. You leave with a decision either way.
Calendar not loading? Email me to find a time →
Not ready to talk? Read The AI Pragmatist. One email a month →
