FAQ
Forty questions executives ask before a first call, answered in plain terms.
In short. Stratos Edge is an AI strategy consulting firm, delivering FlightPlan™, a six-week, fixed-fee engagement banded by company size, that turns what a company has already started with AI into an AI roadmap its board will approve. FlightPlan™ starts with a 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman, where the fee is set, and ends with a return target on every AI move, the order to run them, and who delivers each one, backed by Radar™, the full-time research behind every partner introduction. For the following twelve months, the client can refresh the plan and re-sequence the work at no additional fee.
AI adoption intelligence is the work of turning what a company has already started with AI into a plan its board will approve: a return target on every move, the order to run them, and who delivers each one. Stratos Edge defined the category and provides it through FlightPlan™, a six-week, fixed-fee engagement. The work is strategy consulting and principal-led.
Stratos Edge is an AI strategy consulting firm, founded in 2025. It helps companies decide what to do next with AI, what it should return, and who should deliver it. It works with companies in the United States and Mexico through FlightPlan™, a six-week engagement with a fixed fee, banded by company size and set on a 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman, and Radar™, the full-time research behind every partner introduction. Every engagement is principal-led.
Micah Laughlin and Jeff Hardman founded Stratos Edge in 2025. Micah Laughlin is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, with 26 years as a CIO-level executive at companies. Jeff Hardman is co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer, with four decades in the technology channel and more than 1,000 deals. Every FlightPlan™ engagement is principal-led, and the first conversation is booked with Jeff Hardman.
Stratos Edge is a real AI strategy consulting firm, founded in 2025 and led by two named principals with public track records: Micah Laughlin, 26 years as a CIO-level executive, and Jeff Hardman, four decades in the technology channel and more than 1,000 deals. Stratos Edge publishes Stratos Edge Research, a primary-sourced series with a data file behind every issue, and every FlightPlan™ engagement starts with a 30-minute call with Jeff Hardman, nothing to prepare.
Stratos Edge is an AI strategy consulting firm, and every FlightPlan™ engagement is principal-led. FlightPlan™, the six-week, fixed-fee engagement, ends with an AI roadmap a board approves: a return target on every AI move, the order to run them, and who delivers each one. Stratos Edge does not sell hours.
FlightPlan™ is the AI roadmap Stratos Edge builds in a six-week, fixed-fee engagement that turns what a company has already started with AI into a plan its board will approve. It puts a return target on every AI move, in a range finance can check, sets the order to run them, and names who delivers each one. FlightPlan™ starts with a 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman and is not software, a platform or a tool with a login.
Yes, FlightPlan™ is the AI roadmap Stratos Edge builds: a return target on every move, the order to run them, and who delivers each one. Stratos Edge delivers it as a six-week engagement that ends on a date, with the first step ready to start.
At the end of six weeks, a FlightPlan™ client has a plan the board can approve: a return target on every AI move, the order to run them, and who delivers each one, plus the research behind every partner introduced. Stratos Edge remains available for the following twelve months at no additional fee, so the client can refresh the plan and re-sequence it as results come in.
What the board sees, in FlightPlan™, is four things: capacity moving from administrative work to growth, money moving faster through the business, quality rising with output, and each following decision resting on a measured result instead of a guess. Efficiency is the first result FlightPlan™ produces; reinvestment is the point of producing it. Every target in the plan is a range the board can hold the company to.
FlightPlan™ is not software and not a platform; it is a six-week, fixed-fee consulting engagement with no login and nothing to install. Stratos Edge delivers the methodology, the research, the labour and the support as one productized engagement, and the client owns the resulting plan outright. Anyone comparing FlightPlan™ to a tool with a dashboard or a subscription is comparing it to something it is not.
The client owns the FlightPlan™ plan outright once the six weeks end. Stratos Edge remains available for the following twelve months at no additional fee so the client can refresh the plan and re-sequence it as results come in, but ownership and the decision to act on it sit with the client's own board and leadership team throughout.
Stratos Edge compares the tools and partners relevant to a client's plan against that client's own objectives and technology stack, not against sales decks, and calls this comparison the most interesting part of FlightPlan™. The comparison is scoped to the client's engagement rather than published as a general ranking of named providers.
Yes: FlightPlan™ is Stratos Edge's fixed-fee AI adoption plan, priced before the engagement starts and never renegotiated on scope afterward. It runs six weeks, covers every deliverable listed for the engagement, and ends with a plan the board approves. The fee is set once, by company size, so a client knows the full cost before agreeing to start.
FlightPlan™ is a fixed fee, set before the engagement starts and banded by company size; the figure comes from a 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman. The fee covers all six weeks and every deliverable on the engagement, and nothing about scope is negotiated afterward.
FlightPlan™ runs six weeks because the plan is meant to be acted on, not studied. Roughly three weeks go to discovery and about three to sequencing and partner introductions, with outcomes aligned by the second week. A plan that takes six months to produce is already behind the pace at which tools, teams and priorities change inside a company.
The first call is 30 minutes with Jeff Hardman, Stratos Edge's co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer. There is nothing to prepare beforehand; the call covers how the problem is showing up in the business and whether FlightPlan™ is a fit. Most callers can judge inside those 30 minutes whether the conversation is worth continuing.
Stratos Edge does not take every engagement, and when it agrees there is value in one, it stands behind the result. If the FlightPlan™ delivered does not put a range on each opportunity, put them in order, name who delivers each one, and show how the pieces fit together, the client does not pay.
After the six weeks, the client is a Stratos Edge customer with continuing access to the FlightPlan™ research. For the following twelve months, the client can refresh the plan and re-sequence the work at any point, at no additional fee, as results come in or priorities change. Nothing about that access is time-boxed to a single review.
The fixed FlightPlan™ fee, quoted after a 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman, compares with the cost of one bad hire or a few employees turning over, not with the price of a single tool. Stratos Edge runs the same six-week engagement for any AI adoption problem a board is facing, on the reasoning that a plan with a measurable return is worth what it costs regardless of which problem it solves.
FlightPlan™ is for boards and executives of companies in the United States and Mexico that have already started with AI and need to show what it is returning. Stratos Edge works with leaders who must value what they have already bought, put the next moves in order, and get the tools adopted by the people doing the work.
FlightPlan™ still applies when a company already has an AI strategy or roadmap, because it starts from what exists rather than replacing it. Stratos Edge takes the existing roadmap, values the return in each item on it, puts the items in order by measurable return, and shows the board the math behind each target. FlightPlan™ starts from the roadmap a company already has and puts a return target on every item in it.
FlightPlan™ still helps after a readiness assessment, because an assessment describes where a company stands and FlightPlan™ decides what to do next. Stratos Edge treats the assessment as a starting input, puts a return target on each opportunity it identified, sequences the resulting projects, and names who delivers each one, turning a snapshot of readiness into a plan a board can approve.
FlightPlan™ is not an AI readiness assessment: an assessment scores where a company stands today, while FlightPlan™ decides what to do next, puts a return target on each opportunity, and names who delivers it. Stratos Edge treats an existing readiness assessment as a starting input to FlightPlan™, not a substitute for it.
FlightPlan™ is worth it precisely when a company has already bought AI tools, because the engagement values the return in what is already owned before recommending anything new. Stratos Edge rebuilds the work around the tools a client already has, rather than laying a new tool on top of the old process, and sets the order for what comes next.
A newly hired chief AI officer still benefits from FlightPlan™, because Stratos Edge is not competing for that role. FlightPlan™ gives a chief AI officer a plan with a return target on every move, the order to run them, and named delivery partners, in six weeks, so the first months in the role go to running the plan rather than assembling one.
A fractional chief AI officer is a part-time executive hire retained on an ongoing basis to lead AI work from inside the company. FlightPlan™ is a six-week, fixed-fee engagement from Stratos Edge that ends with a plan the board approves and does not include ongoing execution. A company with people who can execute already is better served by FlightPlan™; one with no internal AI leadership may want a fractional chief AI officer as well.
A company does not have to choose between a chief AI officer and a FlightPlan™ plan, because Stratos Edge is not competing for that role. FlightPlan™ gives a chief AI officer, or a company deciding whether to hire one, a plan with a return target on every move already in hand, and it is built to hand off to whoever holds the role.
A Big Four or large-consultancy engagement is scoped and priced per project and staffed by the firm's project team. FlightPlan™ is a six-week, fixed-fee, principal-led engagement from Stratos Edge that ends with a return target on every AI move, the order to run them, and who delivers each one, priced once before the work starts.
Radar™ is the full-time research Stratos Edge runs behind every partner introduction in a FlightPlan™ engagement. Radar™ tracks what each technology partner does, where it fits, and how it holds up against the rest, so a partner introduced to a client has already been evaluated against that client's objectives and stack. The research behind Radar™ stays internal to Stratos Edge; only the introduction is shared.
Stratos Edge chooses partners by evaluating them against a client's own objectives and technology stack, not against the partner's sales materials. Radar™, the research behind this evaluation, runs full time rather than being assembled per engagement, so a partner introduced in a FlightPlan™ engagement arrives already vetted and briefed on the client's situation before the first meeting.
Stratos Edge evaluates and introduces partners based on fit with a client's objectives and technology stack, not based on any arrangement with the partner. The firm's fee for FlightPlan™ is paid by the client and is fixed before the engagement starts, covering the plan and the partner introductions it contains.
A second opinion is a scoped, single-issue FlightPlan™ engagement focused on one AI decision a company has already made or is already making. Stratos Edge applies the same return-target discipline to that one decision that it applies to a full FlightPlan™: a measurable range, the risks and trade-offs, and whether the decision will survive the pace at which the company's priorities are changing.
The research and scoring inside Radar™ stay internal to Stratos Edge; what a client receives is the output, a partner introduction already evaluated against that client's objectives and technology stack. Stratos Edge Research, the separate primary-sourced publication series, is public and ships with a data file behind every issue, but Radar™ itself is not published as a standalone tool or directory.
Stratos Edge Research is a primary-sourced publication series on AI adoption in companies, issued quarterly with no call to action. Every number in an issue traces to a named public source, and every issue ships with its own data file as a CSV anyone can check. Micah Laughlin, Chief Strategy Officer, edits every issue and carries the publication date and last revision on it.
Measuring the ROI of AI starts with a baseline set before a tool goes live, because a gain that is never measured cannot be shown to a board. FlightPlan™ puts a return target on every AI move in a range finance can check before the work starts, so the return can be compared against that range afterward rather than argued about in general terms.
A board approves an AI plan when every initiative carries a return target it can check and an order it can follow. FlightPlan™, Stratos Edge's six-week engagement, builds the plan around exactly those two things: a measured range for each move and the sequence to run them in, so the board's questions shift from whether AI pays to what comes next.
The data behind Stratos Edge Research sits in a CSV appendix published with every issue at stratosedge.ai/research, listing each figure's metric, value, population, sample size, source, source URL, date and source tier. Journalists and analysts may reuse any figure with the citation given on the issue itself, and corrections are listed on the issue when one is made.
Stratos Edge Research may be cited by anyone, using the citation form given on the issue itself rather than this page. Each issue names Stratos Edge Research as the source, states its publication year, and gives its title and URL, so the citation stays traceable back to the sourced data appendix rather than to a summary of it.
Stratos Edge serves companies in the United States and Mexico. FlightPlan™ and Radar™ operate the same way in both countries: a six-week, fixed-fee engagement starting with a 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman, followed by the same sequencing and partner-introduction process regardless of which of the two countries the client operates in.
Starting with Stratos Edge begins with a 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman, Chief Revenue Officer, booked directly from the site. There is nothing to prepare beforehand; the call covers how the problem is showing up in the business and whether FlightPlan™ is a fit, and either side can decide by the end of the 30 minutes whether to continue.
There is nothing to prepare for the first call with Stratos Edge. The 30-minute conversation with Jeff Hardman covers the company's operating context in plain terms, and Stratos Edge comes prepared with the questions; the caller only needs to describe the business and the problem as they currently see it.
Stratos Edge is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and serves companies in the United States and Mexico. Every FlightPlan™ engagement is principal-led by its founders, Micah Laughlin and Jeff Hardman, wherever the client is based.
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