Your engineering team for vertical AI.
We partner with operator-founders building AI products in their industry. Dedicated team, 7+ years shipping production AI — agents, voice, ranking, ML. Not prototypes that die in the demo.
Production systems, not slide decks.
Production AI agents
Multi-step agents with tools, memory, and evals — running 24/7 with real users.
Voice AI
Real-time voice agents on Twilio. Calls that handle real workflows, not script demos.
Ranking, matching & retrieval
Hybrid search, fine-tuned embeddings, re-ranking, eval — when "just call OpenAI" isn't enough.
Custom ML, incl. fine-tuning
When LLM APIs don't fit: fine-tuning, classifiers, computer vision, predictive models.
What clients actually say.
BroutonLab team helped me automate our workflow with their AI development skills, and it sped up the rate at which we process our customers' requests. Getting started with them was easy, and the results were outstanding.
Michael's developers are amazingly capable and precise — they translated my hierarchical Bayesian MCMC code from R/C++ into CUDA, speeding up computation by two orders of magnitude on nVidia GPUs.
BroutonLab developed a PyTorch backend for non-standard number formats, collaborating closely with our compiler researchers. Highly recommended for complex, research-driven projects.
Besides his amazing personality, lots of patience and managing timelines well. An extremely trustworthy and talented engineer with a treasure trove of experience. I'd recommend him without hesitation.
I highly recommend BroutonLab for filling any AI/ML or SWE staffing gaps. They've consistently delivered exceptional ML and software engineering — depth of knowledge in AI models that aligns to business objectives.
I highly recommend Michael for his outstanding contributions as a data scientist and business partner. His exceptional vision and ability to grasp intricate details have made a significant impact on our team's success.
Two ways to start.
Most partnerships begin with a pilot and grow from there. Some founders go straight to a dedicated team. Both paths end in the same place: production.
One hard slice of your product, shipped to production against a written scope of work — typically $30–50K. No obligation to continue.
3 to 8 engineers, dedicated to you. The team that ran your pilot stays and scales as the product grows.
Honestly: the other ways to build this.
| You + AI tools | In-house team | Upwork / freelancers | Toptal / staff aug | Classic dev agency | BroutonLab | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to start | ✓ Tonight, with Claude Code | ✕ 3–6 months of hiring | Days — for a single freelancer | 1–2 weeks — per seat | 2–6 weeks of sales cycle | 1–2 weeks — for a full senior team |
| Who runs the work | ✕ You — instead of running the business | You, plus a manager you hire | You are the PM | You are the PM | Their PM layer | ✓ Our tech lead, demos every two weeks |
| Team setup | Just you — no team to speak of | Hired one by one — gels over a year | ✕ Solo freelancers, no team at all | Individuals across time zones who've never met | A bench, reshuffled between projects | ✓ One team in one office — people who've shipped together for years |
| AI engineering depth | The same models everyone has — us included. The tools aren't the depth | Whoever you can attract | A lottery | Strong individuals, no team | ✕ They do everything — mobile, websites, blockchain, and AI too | ✓ 7+ years of production AI — and we drive the same AI tools harder than anyone |
| Who's on call in production | You, at 3 a.m., prompting | ✓ Your team — the best setup there is | ✕ You, hoping the freelancer picks up | You — they work their assigned hours | A support ticket, business hours | ✓ We monitor and fix what we ship, for as long as we're engaged |
| Cost shape | ✓ ~$200/mo in tokens — plus your months | ✕ $500K+/year payroll before v1 | $30–80/hr — plus paying twice for rework | $100–200/hr per seat, you still manage them | $50K+ per project, then change orders | Pilot: $30–50K fixed. Team: from $15K/mo |
| Commitment & exit | None — but the codebase is yours to untangle | Hiring is slow, parting is slower | None either way | Month to month | ✕ Locked to the contract | ✓ Pilot first. 30-day notice. Clean handover |
You don't have to take our column on faith — that's what the pilot is for. Already vibe-coded a prototype? Even better: show it to us on the first call. A working prototype is the best brief a pilot can start from.
We're probably not your team if:
- You want a throwaway prototype or demo — we only build things meant to run in production.
- You want a foundation model trained from scratch — that's research-lab territory.
- You're an enterprise running a 6-month RFP process — we don't have a sales team for that.
- You need staff augmentation — rent-an-engineer model. We're a team, not a marketplace.
If you recognize yourself here, we'd rather say so now than waste your time on a call. Happy to point you toward people who specialize in any of these.