AI consultants in Miami: the operator's guide to building an AI Operating System in South Florida
Miami has three types of AI consultants: Big 4 accounting firms, dev shops, and independent fractionals. Operators running $10M to $100M businesses get the best fit from an independent Fractional Head of AI, because the Big 4 is priced for public companies and dev shops build tools without the operating system.
Why Miami operators need a different answer.
Miami is a mid-market city. The companies that matter here are not Fortune 500 headquarters. They are family offices in Brickell, construction firms in Doral, distributors in Hialeah, wellness and lifestyle brands in Wynwood, architecture studios in Coconut Grove, and professional services firms spread across Coral Gables and downtown. Most run between 20 and 200 employees and generate $5M to $100M in revenue. Most operate bilingually. Most have exposure to Latin America through suppliers, investors, clients, or all three.
That profile changes what good AI consulting looks like. A New York Big 4 template priced for a $2B public company does not fit a Miami distributor running across four countries. A Silicon Valley AI agency pitching a custom model does not fit a Miami law firm that needs intake to actually work by Monday. The best AI consultant in Miami is the one who matches the operator's size, language, budget, and timeline. Everything on this page is organized around that question.
Three types of AI consultants in Miami. Honest read on each.
Big 4 accounting and consulting firms
Kaufman Rossin, Berkowitz Pollack Brant, PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG all have a Miami presence, most of them concentrated in Brickell. These are serious firms. They are strong on audit, tax, enterprise software selection, regulated industries, and large-scale change programs. If you are a public company, a regulated financial institution, or an operator who needs a Big 4 name on the engagement letter for board or audit reasons, that is the lane.
Where they do not fit is the Miami mid-market. Their engagements are priced for organizations that can absorb six-figure minimums and multi-quarter timelines. For an operator running $10M to $100M in revenue, a Big 4 scope usually arrives as a slide deck recommending further scoping. That is not a knock on the firms. It is a mismatch between their delivery model and a mid-market operator who needs the first workflow live inside 30 days.
Dev shops and agencies
The second category is Miami digital agencies and LATAM nearshore dev shops. Many of them are competent software teams. If you already know exactly what you want built, have a clear spec, and need engineering hands to ship it, a dev shop can move quickly. The pricing is usually lower than a Big 4 firm and the build pace can be fast.
Where they do not fit is the step before the build. Most operators do not need a tool. They need a system. A dev shop will build what you ask for. It usually does not come with a data layer strategy, a governance policy, a measurement framework, or an operating system view of how the tool connects to the rest of the business. The result is often a working product that sits next to the real workflow instead of changing it.
Independent Fractional Heads of AI
The third category is the one Work-Smart sits in. An independent Fractional Head of AI is an embedded operator who walks the floor, sits with the team, inspects the stack, and builds the system in 4 to 16 week phases. Engagements are fixed fee. Outcomes are measured in hours saved and dollars recovered. Everything built is client-owned and runs on client infrastructure. There is no platform lock-in and no licensing on the back end.
Where this model does not fit is the same place the Big 4 excels. If your board requires a brand-name firm on the engagement letter, or you need a team of 30 developers for 18 months, an independent fractional is not the right call. Outside those cases, for a Miami operator between $10M and $100M in revenue, it is usually the best fit, because it matches the budget, the timeline, and the way the work actually gets done inside a mid-market company.
How to evaluate an AI consultant in Miami.
Seven questions to ask any Miami AI consultant before you sign. If the answer to most of these is no, keep looking.
- Does the consultant work on-site or at minimum in your time zone, or is the engagement a LATAM nearshore handoff behind a Miami sales front?
- Do they speak Spanish if your team does? Half of Miami operations run in Spanish. A consultant who cannot interview the floor will miss where the work actually happens.
- Are they independent, or captive to a platform vendor like Microsoft, Google, or Salesforce? Captive consultants tend to recommend what they are paid to sell.
- Will they sign a phase-one engagement under $10,000? Anyone who will not start small is optimizing for their revenue, not your risk.
- Do they measure outcomes in hours saved and dollars recovered, or do they talk about maturity curves and roadmaps?
- Do you own what they build, on your infrastructure, with your credentials, or is everything hosted on their stack with a monthly seat fee?
- Can they show a real Miami client under NDA or anonymized reference, with specific numbers and a named decision maker?
The book of business behind this page.
Work-Smart is run by Ignacio Lopez, based in Coconut Grove. The current book of business runs across Miami, South Florida, and Latin America. It includes Argentina's largest construction group, where the system called Capataz gives the CEO real-time visibility across project cost, certifications, and document search. It includes a $14B wealth advisory firm in Brickell, where the engagement started as a 6-week AI visibility project and expanded into a 9-month Fractional Head of AI retainer covering Voice DNA, authority content, proposal automation, and intelligence briefing.
It includes a 40-year-old packaging manufacturer operating in four countries, where sales, catalog, and customer operations now run on one integrated platform. It includes Grupo Lyown, a Miami-based law firm with operations in Colombia, where Victoria, a WhatsApp AI agent, replaced a web form and moved lead conversion from near zero into a measured pipeline. It includes a Miami wellness and lifestyle brand that replaced seven disconnected tools with a single platform in three months.
It includes Rudolph Architecture in Coconut Grove, where the engagement delivered three websites, a client portal, a project dashboard, and an admin back end. It includes a Miami-based CPG export distributor running a sales dashboard on top of an on-premise ERP, feeding Caribbean, Central American, and South American markets. It includes Joy of Impact, a nonprofit consulting practice where an AI workspace cut grant proposal writing from six to eight hours down to one to two.
That is the range. Construction, wealth advisory, packaging manufacturing, legal, wellness, architecture, distribution, and nonprofit. Miami and LATAM. Bilingual. Owner-operator deliveries. Every engagement ran on a fixed-fee phased model. Every system is client-owned. Read the detailed case studies in the links at the bottom of this page.
A Miami operator's 90-day AI plan.
Day 1 to 30 is audit and baseline. Inspect the data stack. Map where information actually lives. Interview the people doing the work, in English and Spanish, in the office and on the floor. Document the three workflows that absorb the most hours. Measure the current state with real numbers, not estimates. Produce a phase-one build plan with scope, cost, and timeline on one page.
Day 31 to 60 is the first workflow live and the first governance policy published. Pick the workflow with the highest ratio of hours recovered to build cost. Ship it into production, not a demo. Train the team that will use it. Publish a short AI-use policy covering shadow AI, data handling, and what tools are approved. This is where most Miami operators stop having the shadow AI conversation.
Day 61 to 90 is second and third workflows live, plus the first monthly ROI report. The report should state hours saved, dollars recovered, workflows in production, policies published, and open risks. If a Miami consultant cannot describe their work in those terms at the end of month three, the engagement was a slide deck, not a build.
If you need a brand-name firm on the engagement letter for board optics or a regulator, hire Kaufman Rossin or another Big 4 practice in Brickell. If you already have a locked specification and need 30 engineers for 18 months, hire a dev shop. If your organization is a Fortune 500 with a dedicated AI budget and an internal program office, a Big 4 engagement will serve you better than an independent. Outside those cases, for a Miami or South Florida operator between 20 and 200 employees running a real business in construction, legal, financial services, distribution, wellness, architecture, or professional services, this is the lane, and the fit is close to exact.
Frequently asked questions
Miami AI consultants fall into three groups. Big 4 and regional accounting firms like Kaufman Rossin, Berkowitz Pollack Brant, PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG cover enterprise AI strategy tied to audit and tax work. Dev shops and agencies build custom tools on spec. Independent Fractional Heads of AI, the Work-Smart category, run embedded operator-led engagements for mid-market companies. For a $10M to $100M operator, an independent fractional is usually the best fit. For a regulated public company, a Big 4 engagement is usually the right call.
A 2-3 week AI Ops Audit runs $5,000 to $10,000. A 4-16 week AI Foundation Build runs $10,000 to $50,000 depending on scope. Monthly retained AI operations run $5,000 to $12,000. Big 4 engagements in Miami typically start at six figures and price for public-company budgets. Dev shop builds vary widely by hours. All Work-Smart engagements are fixed fee by phase, so the number you see is the number you pay.
Yes. Work-Smart is run by Ignacio Lopez, fluent in English and Spanish, based in Coconut Grove. Documentation, training, policy, and team workshops run in both languages. Most Miami operators have bilingual teams, with leadership in English and field operations in Spanish, or the opposite. A consultant who only works in English will miss where the real work happens.
Kaufman Rossin is a regional accounting and advisory firm with a strong Miami presence and a deep bench for audit, tax, and enterprise technology. Their AI advisory sits inside that larger practice and is priced for companies that can support full advisory engagements. Work-Smart is an independent fractional practice built around one operator who walks the floor, connects to the stack, and ships working systems in 4 to 16 weeks. Different buyers, different budgets, different scopes.
Work-Smart does. Most Miami mid-market operators have operations, suppliers, or investors in Latin America. Current and past engagements include clients in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and across Central America. The engagements run bilingually, with written artifacts in both languages and workshops delivered in the team language. Miami is the natural hub for this work, which is part of why the local market is different from New York or San Francisco.
Construction firms in Doral and Medley use it for cost control and project visibility. Family offices and wealth advisory firms in Brickell use it for proposal generation, knowledge systems, and intelligence briefing. Law firms use it for intake, document review, and client qualification. CPG distributors use it for sales dashboards and inventory. Wellness and lifestyle brands use it to replace tool sprawl. Architecture and professional services firms use it for proposals, document generation, and internal knowledge.
With a fixed-fee phased approach, the first workflow goes live inside 30 days and the first measured outcome lands inside 60. A realistic 90-day plan runs audit and baseline in month one, first workflow live and first policy published in month two, second and third workflows and a monthly ROI report in month three. If a consultant is pitching a 12-month rollout with no month-one deliverable, that is a warning sign.
Ignacio Lopez is the founder of Work-Smart.ai and a Fractional Head of AI for mid-market operators. Based in Coconut Grove, Miami. Bilingual, English and Spanish. Clients in Miami, South Florida, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. LinkedIn →
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