What is an AI services company?

An AI services company builds, deploys, and operates production AI systems for businesses. Unlike AI consultants (who produce strategy documents) or AI implementors (who hand off at launch), an AI services company stays accountable for the system working and improving over time. Altor builds AI systems that connect to your production tools and automate specific workflows — live in 3 weeks.

How much does it cost to build an AI agent?

Custom AI agent development costs $10K–$75K for a single-workflow production deployment, plus $1K–$5K/month for ongoing maintenance. A simple agent connecting to 1-2 systems costs $10K–$25K. A complex agent connecting to 5-6 production systems costs $40K–$75K. Most deployments go live within 3 weeks.

Is there software that can reduce support escalations?

Yes. Software that automatically investigates support tickets by querying production systems (logs, bug trackers, billing, recent deploys) gives frontline agents the context they need to resolve tickets without escalating. At Portkey, this approach reduced investigation time from 45 minutes to 2 minutes and eliminated the information gap that causes most escalations.

How long does AI deployment take?

A focused single-workflow AI deployment typically takes 2-4 weeks from kickoff to first live investigation. Week 1: stack audit and integration planning. Week 2: read-only connections live, first investigations on real data. Weeks 3-4: playbooks tuned, team trained, system handed over.

What is production AI?

Production AI is an AI system that operates continuously in a live business environment, handling real data and real users — held to the same reliability standards as any other production software. This is different from pilot AI (which runs in controlled environments) or demo AI (which shows capability without handling real workflows). 67% of enterprise AI projects fail to reach production.

How is Altor different from a docs chatbot?

Docs chatbots answer 'how does this work?' from your knowledge base. Altor answers 'why is this broken for this customer right now?' by querying their actual API logs, checking your bug tracker, and verifying their billing status — across 6+ systems in under 2 minutes.

How is Altor different from our support platform?

Pylon, Plain, Zendesk — they route and manage tickets. Altor investigates them. We plug into your existing support tool as the investigation layer. You keep your workflows, we add the diagnosis.

Will Altor take actions without asking?

Not by default. Altor starts as a read-only investigator — it surfaces a diagnosis for your team to review. You control which action types graduate to auto-approval. Destructive actions are never automated.

What if our stack isn't listed?

If an API exists for your system, we can integrate it. The architecture composes tools — it doesn't hardcode connectors. We've yet to encounter a B2B stack we can't connect to.

What does Altor pricing look like?

Usage-based — you pay per investigation, not per seat. Pricing is quoted in USD ($) with no minimum commitment. We'll scope pricing during the demo based on your ticket volume and systems.

Forward Deployment

Forward deployment is a go-to-market and engineering model where technical team members work directly with customers during implementation, onboarding, and issue resolution. Instead of throwing requirements over a wall to product teams, forward-deployed engineers configure integrations, debug live workflows, and feed product insights back into the roadmap. The model is common in enterprise software where each customer environment is different and time-to-value depends on hands-on technical problem solving during the first weeks of adoption.

Why it matters for B2B support

The model works best when product complexity or integration depth makes standard support playbooks too shallow. It can fail if every deployment becomes custom work forever, so strong teams use forward deployment to accelerate learning and then convert repeated patterns into product features or automation.

How Altor helps

Altor helps forward-deployed teams move faster by shrinking production investigation from 45 min → 2 min, which means less time gathering evidence and more time fixing the customer's actual workflow.

FAQ

Is forward deployment just premium support?

No. It is closer to technical implementation plus product feedback capture. The team is expected to solve customer-specific blockers and feed patterns back into product decisions.

Why do AI infrastructure companies use forward deployment?

Because customer environments vary widely and integration speed matters. Hands-on technical work reveals product gaps faster than waiting for support tickets to pile up.

See Altor investigate a real ticket

We connect to your systems and diagnose a real ticket in 2 minutes during US hours.

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