Strategic Advisory for the Technopolitical Age
AI adoption creates a governance problem and a dependency problem at the same time — and both keep moving. We help organisations map the exposure, then stay ahead of it.
Most engagements begin with a single diagnostic question and grow into a standing relationship: the systems in use, the evidence missing from vendors, the technology exposures that could become operating constraints — read continuously, not once.
Regulatory copy last reviewed: 30 June 2026
Three forensic domains, two analytical methods — applied to your decision.
The Drift Retainer
Your standing read on the drift — so the leadership team is never blindsided.
You have bought the licences and your people are experimenting. When the board asks what has actually changed in how the business makes money, manages risk, or serves customers, the honest answer is often: not much. Meanwhile the drift does not hold still. Export controls shift, a fab reports delays, a regulatory position diverges across the Atlantic — and the exposure you mapped in spring reads differently by autumn.
The Drift Retainer is the relationship behind the analysis: a senior, independent reading of how technopolitical movement affects your supply chains, your procurement, and your people — delivered every month, in language a semi-technical leadership team can act on.
Equally for US companies operating in or entering Europe: a standing, independent read on how the AI Act, the sovereignty package, and the wider drift affect your European position — so compliance becomes a maintained state, not an annual panic.
How it starts. Every engagement opens with the Baseline Month: a structured read of where AI and the drift currently touch your operations, built from your org chart, your current tools and spend, and short conversations with three or four process owners. It ends with a Baseline Briefing — the two or three places where the exposure is real and where the next quarter’s focus belongs. You know within thirty days whether the relationship earns its fee.
The same drift runs through individual careers as well as company strategy. Where the brief is personal rather than organisational, WaymarkPath is the companion.
- The monthly briefing — a short, board-forwardable written read plus a call: what shifted in the drift this month, and the decision it changes
- The working session — ninety minutes on one live decision, externally refereed
- The Line — direct access between sessions to challenge a vendor claim, sanity-check a proposal, or prepare a board answer
- The quarterly exposure review — a deeper written read on the same 3×2 method the public analysis uses, traced to your exposure
Software tracks your controls. It doesn’t read export controls. A governance platform will tell you what’s in your inventory; the Drift Retainer tells you what’s about to change around it — and which decision it changes. Most clients eventually run both; the Retainer also tells you which platform you actually need before you buy one.
The Baseline Month guarantee: after month one, walk away paying that month only. You know within thirty days whether the relationship earns its fee.
Prefer annual? Twelve months for the price of ten (£20,000/year).
The 3×2 Method. Applied to Your Decision.
Every engagement draws on the Forensic Technopolitics methodology: three forensic domains and two analytical methods. These applied views turn that method into practical work.
Follow-on Modules
Each module deepens a single exposure where self-service tools reach their limit. Available as additions to a diagnostic — or folded into a Drift Retainer as the standing relationship requires.
- Technology and supplier dependency map
- Chokepoint identification for critical components
- Procurement questions for exposed suppliers
- Prioritised resilience actions
- Custom scenario development for your context
- Value-at-stake quantification by business unit
- Cascade effect mapping
- Early warning indicator framework
- Dual-jurisdiction compliance mapping
- Friction scoring for your operations
- Priority action matrix
- Cost and timeline estimates
- A complete AI bill of materials: each model, dataset, fine-tune, wrapper, API and library, version-tracked
- Provenance and licence status for every component, with the gaps your vendors cannot yet evidence
- A mapping to the Cyber Resilience Act’s SBOM duty and to AI Act Article 50 transparency
- A prioritised remediation list — what to fix before the September 2026 reporting duties bite
Or added to an EU Exposure Briefing.
- A model-dependency map: where inference, weights and keys sit, and who can reach them
- An abstraction-layer assessment — can you satisfy a buyer’s sovereignty demand without re-architecting?
- A key-custody and admin-access review: EU-resident keys, and where a US administrative override still reaches EU data
- A sovereignty roadmap that keeps your options open — it does not pick your vendors for you
Engagement Options
One ascending ladder — from a low-commitment briefing to the standing relationship. Every one-off engagement names a price and a path into the Drift Retainer.
£450. Credited in full toward your first month on the Drift Retainer if you proceed within 30 days — so if we work together, the conversation was free.
New here? Start with the free 25-minute conversation (launch offer). The Briefing is the working session: your tool results, your specific question, a written follow-up.
If you need template policies and a document pack, a fixed-price compliance shop will do it cheaper — our own £79 toolkit covers the essentials. The Exposure Diagnostic is for the questions documents can’t answer: where your dependency on specific vendors, models and jurisdictions becomes an operating constraint, and what to do about it this quarter.
- AI system and vendor-evidence review — what you run, and what your vendors can prove
- Dependency mapping — models, APIs, cloud, and jurisdiction exposure across your stack
- Regulatory-friction read — where US/EU divergence touches your operations
- Written report (15–25 pages) with executive summary and prioritised actions
- 30-day follow-up call
Designed as an on-ramp: the diagnostic scopes naturally into a Drift Retainer, and its fee is credited toward your first quarter.
If the final report contains nothing actionable for your situation, a full second revision round or a 50% refund — your call.
The Baseline Month guarantee: after month one, walk away paying that month only. You know within thirty days whether the relationship earns its fee.
- A board-forwardable monthly briefing — what shifted, and the decision it changes
- A working session on one live decision, externally refereed
- The Line — direct access between sessions for the awkward questions
- A quarterly written exposure review on the 3×2 method
- A standing line to thirty years inside the industry
Before you commit €1,000–€3,100 a month to governance software, know what you actually need it to do. The Strategic Assessment gives your board a framework-neutral decision document — vendor-agnostic, because we sell no software and take no referral fees.
Every step pays for the next.
- £24 Checklist Pack£20 off the Toolkit.
- £450 Briefingcredited in full to your first retainer month.
- £2,500 Diagnosticcredited to your first retainer quarter.
Start anywhere. Never pay twice for the same ground.
Start a Conversation
Tell us about your situation and what you're trying to achieve. We'll respond with initial thoughts and options for moving forward.
All enquiries are treated with strict confidentiality.
Initial response within 48 hours on business days.
Preliminary conversations are always complimentary.