Pilot & Proof
Applied AI · Houston, Texas

AI that has to prove itself.

We find where AI can save your team real hours, pilot it inside the tools you already use, and prove it against a baseline before anyone calls it a win. A person approves everything that matters.

Founded by a biomedical research scientist who builds working AI systems and publishes the results.

Fig. 1 · Observe Microscope, ca. 1750 Stippled from The Met, Open Access
01 — Services

Three ways AI earns its keep.

01

Build

Put AI to work inside the jobs your team already does.

  • Assistants that write in your voice and follow your rules
  • Intake and triage against your own fit rules
  • Documents turned into clean, checked data
  • Image recognition, from photos to decisions
  • Agents with spend caps, approvals and a kill switch
02

Save

Find the hours and dollars, then take them back.

  • A two-week AI Opportunity Assessment
  • Back-office automation, supervised
  • A tool and seat audit: use what you already pay for
  • An AI spend tune-up for teams already on LLM APIs
  • Workshops and an AI policy your staff will follow
03

Grow

Get ready for customers who now arrive through AI.

  • AI features inside your own product
  • Agent-ready: customers’ AI assistants can use your service
  • Show up, and show up accurately, in AI answers
  • New offerings built from your expertise
  • Governance for HIPAA, SEC/FINRA and Texas’s AI law
02 — Method

Every engagement runs like a study.

Step 1 · Week 0Observe

We sit with the work. Where do the hours actually go?

Step 2 · Weeks 1–2Baseline

We measure it before we change it, so the result means something.

Step 3 · Weeks 3–6Pilot

One workflow, small and supervised. Nothing goes out without a person.

Step 4 · When it passesLaunch

Only after the launch checklist: privacy, sign-in, spend caps, hand-off.

Step 5 · MonthlyFollow up

Results against the baseline, new rules, model updates.

Entry 01 · A typical first protocol

Can an assistant handle your routine client email?

HypothesisIt can draft them in your voice, with your rules.
BaselineMinutes per email, measured before we touch anything.
PilotTwo weeks, one inbox. Nothing is sent without you.
DecisionKeep it, change it or stop it, on the numbers.
03 — Case notes

Proof, not promises.

Case note 01 · Build · Travel

A solo travel advisor gets a second pair of hands.

She runs the whole business alone. We built her a private assistant that drafts her emails, reviews new inquiries, plans trips and turns them into proposals. It never invents a price, and she sends everything herself.

Fig. 2 — How one request moves through her assistant
Her requesttyped or spoken
Privacy guardblocks · masks
Her filesvoice · rules · prices
Claude draftswith sources
She approvesthen sends

Red boxes are the two checkpoints that can stop a draft.

3 daysfrom design to working software
205automated tests guarding it
5tools, plus chat and voice

Also on file: a physician-founder’s healthspan MVP, plus example solutions for financial planners, landscapers, clinics and property managers.

04 — Standards

Five rules every build follows.

  1. A person approves anything that leaves the building.
  2. No invented numbers. Prices, dates and claims come from you, or they get flagged.
  3. Privacy by default. Card, Social Security and account numbers are blocked; contact details masked.
  4. You can maintain it. What it knows lives in plain files you edit. No lock-in.
  5. Measured honestly, including what didn’t work.
Michael Jochum, founder of Pilot & Proof
Michael Jochum, PhD · Founder
05 — About

A scientist who builds.

Michael Jochum is a biomedical research scientist in Houston. The work runs from published image-recognition research on medical ultrasound to assistants that help small businesses answer email, plan work and quote jobs.

Pilot & Proof brings the same discipline to your business: measure first, change one thing, and report what happened, including when the answer is “don’t automate this.”

06 — Start

Bring us one workflow that eats your week.

The assessment takes two weeks at a fixed fee. You keep the opportunity map whether or not you hire us.

A sentence or two is plenty: the task, who does it, and how often.
Will the work touch any of this? (tick any)

Please don’t include card, Social Security or account numbers. We never need them, and the form will stop you if you try.