AI Strategy Consulting

I turn AI overwhelm into a clear roadmap — and teach your team to navigate it themselves.

Twenty years in emerging technology. Four years shipping production AI at Lucasfilm and Digital Domain. Now helping executives make confident AI decisions — without creating dependency on consultants.

Book a 30-Minute Call →

AI shipped into production on Star Wars, Avengers, Spider-Man, Captain America — and counting.

The Reality

Sound familiar?

Your competitors are moving on AI. Your board is asking questions. And every vendor you talk to is selling a different answer.
You've sat through the demos. You've heard the pitches. You still don't have a strategy you trust.
You know you need to act — but the cost of getting this wrong is higher than the cost of waiting.

The pressure is real. The noise is louder. And most AI consultants are making it worse — not better.

The Approach

A different kind of engagement.

Most consultants arrive with a solution. I arrive with questions.

Before I tell you what I think you need, I want to understand what's actually going on — where the pressure is coming from, where your team's fluency really is, and what the cost of inaction looks like for your specific business.

That diagnosis shapes everything that follows: the strategy, the roadmap, and the way I work with your team.

"The tidal wave is coming. I'm not here to sell you a life raft. I'm here to teach you how to build your own boat."

My goal is to make myself redundant. Every engagement ends with your team more capable, more confident, and less dependent on outside help — including mine.

The Service

AI Readiness & Roadmap

A structured engagement that gives you clarity, confidence, and a concrete path forward.

What We Cover

  • Current AI fluency across your leadership team and key functions
  • Your business goals and where AI creates genuine leverage
  • Real pain points vs. manufactured hype — I'll tell you the difference
  • Your existing technology stack and what it makes possible
  • Competitive pressure and where you actually stand

What You Walk Away With

  • A clear, prioritized AI roadmap tailored to your business — not a generic framework
  • A team that understands why each decision was made
  • Concrete next steps you can act on immediately
  • The confidence to evaluate AI opportunities and vendors on your own

From a focused assessment to embedded advisory support — scope is tailored to where you are and what you actually need. We figure that out together on the first call.

Book a Call to Discuss Scope →
About

Mark Hopkins

I've spent twenty years at the intersection of emerging technology and the people who have to make it work.

I started as a software engineer and artist at Lucasfilm — building early cloud-render infrastructure, shipping compositing systems remotely onto Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean, and leading VFX teams on Star Wars and Avengers. I became a supervisor. Then a product manager. Then the person the C-suite called when AI started arriving in the pipeline faster than anyone knew what to do with.

At Digital Domain, I owned the AI product roadmap — shipping neural deformation, facial capture, and motion diffusion systems into live productions. I sat with the artists, the engineers, and the executives. I learned what actually works, and what just sounds good in a pitch deck.

That's the experience I bring to this work. Not theory. Not frameworks borrowed from someone else. Twenty years of shipping things — and knowing what it takes to bring people along.

Lucasfilm · ILM · Digital Domain · Sony Imageworks · VES Technical Award Nominee 2024

Let's talk.

Thirty minutes. No pitch. I'll ask you a few questions about your AI situation — and you'll leave with at least one thing that's useful, regardless of whether we work together.

Book a 30-Minute Call → Or reach me directly: mark@pivot-ai.site