How a sub-100-person biotech runs an AI transformation without a Head of AI, a platform, or a committee. The fractional version of every role and program.
The one idea
At fifty people with runway to protect, you cannot open a requisition for an AI Product Partner, and you should not try. The role is a function before it is a job. Someone has to own permission, own adoption, and route the programs, but that someone is already on your team, at about 20% of their time. Operator heuristic The 20% is a starting figure, not a measurement; size it to your company, and watch for the trigger where the function outgrows the fraction. Naming them is the whole move.
Give it an owner, not a hire
The function has to exist. The full-time body does not, until the function outgrows a fraction of one. So do not post a job. Take one person who already has the trust of the room and a real curiosity about the tools, and give them a fifth of their week and a clear mandate. A named owner at 20% beats an unfilled requisition every quarter of the year, and it beats a committee every day of the week.
Which of your people is the right shape
The right owner is T-shaped. Deep enough in one part of the work to be respected, broad enough to see across the whole company, and genuinely curious about what the tools can now do. In practice that is often a chief of staff, a head of operations, or a sharp program lead.
It is usually not your most technical person, because the job is translation and trust, not engineering. And it is almost never an outside hire, because the hardest part of the work is changing how respected colleagues do their jobs, and that trust does not arrive with a contract. Look for the shape, not the title. You are looking for the person other people already listen to.
Owns the one-page AI Use Policy, so permission is settled and out of the way.
Finds the one workflow worth changing, and makes the win visible.
Trains people to self-serve, because most of the value lives there and needs no project.
Routes every new request through the five moves instead of defaulting to a purchase.
Recruits the ambassadors that everyone else copies.
What not to do at your size
Don’t hire a Head of AI. Name the function first, and hire only once the 20% is visibly, provably full.
Don’t buy a platform before you have shipped a workflow. You have not earned the signal that tells you which one.
Don’t stand up a committee. A committee is how a small company simulates progress. One owner outruns it.
Don’t build what you can buy, or buy what your people can already self-serve.
Don’t wait for a strategy.Run a quarter, and let the strategy be the pattern you find.
The minimum viable institution
You do not need a transformation office. You need the smallest working version of all three pillars: one page of Permission, one visible win under People, one workflow routed on purpose under Programs. That is a complete operating model, and it fits on a company under a hundred people without adding a single full-time head.
Before you post the job, look around the room. The person who should own this is probably already in it, doing something you value, and one honest conversation away from spending a fifth of their time on the thing that will change the other four.
## The one idea
At fifty people with runway to protect, you cannot open a requisition for [an AI Product Partner](/ai-product-partner/), and you should not try. The role is a *function* before it is a job. Someone has to own permission, own adoption, and route the programs, but that someone is already on your team, at about 20% of their time. <span class="ev ev--heuristic">Operator heuristic</span> The 20% is a starting figure, not a measurement; size it to your company, and watch for the trigger where the function outgrows the fraction. Naming them is the whole move.
## Give it an owner, not a hire
The function has to exist. The full-time body does not, until the function outgrows a fraction of one. So do not post a job. Take one person who already has the trust of the room and a real curiosity about the tools, and give them a fifth of their week and a clear mandate. A named owner at 20% beats an unfilled requisition every quarter of the year, and it beats a committee every day of the week.
## Which of your people is the right shape
The right owner is T-shaped. Deep enough in one part of the work to be respected, broad enough to see across the whole company, and genuinely curious about what the tools can now do. In practice that is often a chief of staff, a head of operations, or a sharp program lead.
It is usually *not* your most technical person, because the job is translation and trust, not engineering. And it is almost never an outside hire, because the hardest part of the work is [changing how respected colleagues do their jobs](/permission-people-programs/), and that trust does not arrive with a contract. Look for the shape, not the title. You are looking for the person other people already listen to.
## What the 20% does
- Runs the [Permission, People, Programs Scorecard](/artifacts/ppp-scorecard/) and names the weakest pillar.
- Owns the one-page [AI Use Policy](/artifacts/ai-use-policy/), so permission is settled and out of the way.
- Finds the one workflow worth changing, and makes the win visible.
- Trains people to self-serve, because most of the value lives there and needs no project.
- Routes every new request through the [five moves](/artifacts/build-vs-buy/) instead of defaulting to a purchase.
- Recruits the ambassadors that everyone else copies.
## What not to do at your size
- **Don't hire a Head of AI.** Name the function first, and hire only once the 20% is visibly, provably full.
- **Don't buy a platform before you have shipped a workflow.** You have not earned the signal that tells you which one.
- **Don't stand up a committee.** A committee is how a small company simulates progress. One owner outruns it.
- **Don't build what you can buy, or buy what your people can already self-serve.**
- **Don't wait for a strategy.** [Run a quarter](/artifacts/first-90-days/), and let the strategy be the pattern you find.
## The minimum viable institution
You do not need a transformation office. You need the smallest working version of all three pillars: one page of Permission, one visible win under People, one workflow routed on purpose under Programs. That is a complete operating model, and it fits on a company under a hundred people without adding a single full-time head.
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*Before you post the job, look around the room. The person who should own this is probably already in it, doing something you value, and one honest conversation away from spending a fifth of their time on the thing that will change the other four.*