Forward-deployed engineers · Charleston, SC
AI tools are the workers. We build the brain they work from.
We work inside your business and put what we learn into one brain you own: your customers, your prices, your promises. Every AI tool your team uses works from it, and we build the apps and AI agents that run on it.
- Fortune 500 engineering experience
- Built for mid-market companies
- We run our own company on it
Why we started Cornerstone
Every company has AI now. Almost none of it knows the company.
The tools are good, and they get better every month. What they don’t have is your business: how you price, what you promised, who knows what and how the work really gets done.
That lives in people’s heads, inboxes and spreadsheets, so every tool starts from zero. Tech companies fixed this with one brain that every tool draws from. We build that for mid-market companies, in person.
Once your brain is built, the AI tools your team already uses can answer like this:
What did we promise the Hendricks on the Elm Street job?
A finished basement by November 15, egress window included. They approved the upgraded flooring on September 18, which adds $4,200.
- Site walk notes · Sep 12
- Email from Jen · Sep 18
- Contract, version 2
Draft the change order for the flooring.
Change order 3 · Elm Street
Upgraded flooring +$4,200
Drafted from the contract and the September 18 email.
How it gets built
In person, in three steps. Everything we build is yours.
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01
We learn your business
In person, office and field, for as long as it takes. That’s what forward-deployed means. Not local? We start with a call.
- Before
- A few people know how everything runs, and most of it isn’t written down.
- After
- It’s written down, checked with the people who do the work and ready to build on.
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02
We build your brain
Everything your business knows, in one place, in your name. Every meeting and email adds to it.
- Before
- Each AI tool knows only what someone pastes into it.
- After
- Everyone, and every AI tool, works from the same facts.
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03
We build what runs on it
Apps, tools and AI agents, each made to do one job well. We stay on and answer for the result.
- Before
- AI that writes a nice draft and leaves the job to you.
- After
- Jobs done start to finish, with a person signing off on anything with money in it.
Learned inside the Fortune 500. Built for the mid-market.
Will was a forward-deployed engineer, building automation and internal tools inside the operations of some of North America’s largest retailers and manufacturers.
Mid-market companies have much of the same complexity: several teams, real systems and real money moving through them. What they usually don’t have is an AI team of their own. That’s who we build for, and we work the way the biggest AI companies now work with their customers: forward-deployed, in person.
Three rules on every build
- AI drafts. Code does the math. A person signs off.
- Nothing with money in it goes out without a yes.
- Answers come from your brain, with the source shown.
- If the brain can’t point to where it learned something, it says so.
- Privacy is enforced by the database, not by a promise.
- What someone shouldn’t see, the database won’t serve.
You’ll only ever work with the two of us.
We’re both engineers, and we do the work ourselves: we come in, learn how your business runs and build its brain. No account managers, no hand-offs.
More about us