Guide · Choosing support
An AI engineering department compared with managed IT, a freelancer, or a hire
If your company has outgrown "someone's cousin who knows computers" and has no CTO, there are four usual ways to get technology looked after. Each suits a different situation.
Managed IT provider
A traditional managed IT provider looks after laptops, the office network, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and the help desk. It is a good fit when your needs are mostly people and devices. It usually stops short of your own software, your deploy pipeline and your cloud architecture.
Freelancer or agency
A freelancer is strong for a defined piece of work: build this, fix that. It gets harder when you need someone to keep watching, answer at night, or remember how it all fits together. Knowledge tends to leave with the person.
Hiring an engineer
A good full-time engineer who knows your business is hard to beat, if you can find and afford one and have enough work to keep them busy. One person is also a single point of failure for holidays, illness and resignation, and rarely covers every area from email security to cloud cost.
An AI engineering department
This is what Olodu is. AI engineers do the investigation and the work across your whole stack, a second engineer reviews each plan, and people supervise. You pay a fixed monthly price and get response times in writing.
It suits a company of roughly 10 to 200 people with real systems to look after and no in-house technology lead. Because the work is recorded step by step, the knowledge stays written down per system, not in one person's head.
What to check before trusting any provider with access
- Is access read-only by default, and can you withdraw it yourself?
- Does every change need approval from someone you name?
- Is there a saved state and a rollback if a change goes wrong?
- Do you get a record of everything done, and can you export it?
- Is it clear who is doing the work, including when it is AI?
Olodu's answers to all five are on the security page.
Where an AI team is not the right choice
- You mainly need hands-on help in a physical office, such as cabling or printers.
- You need a single hire to lead a large engineering organisation.
- You cannot give any outside party even read-only access to your systems.
A low-risk way to compare
Ask each option for the same first step: a read-only look at what you have. Olodu's free 7-day systems audit is that step, and you keep the report whatever you decide. The plans and response times are published, and the about page explains who is behind Olodu.