An AI consultant based in Charleston, SC
Last service: 2026-07-12
O'Donnell AI is a one-person AI operations firm based in Charleston, run by Jake O'Donnell, a licensed professional engineer. We map, build, and run AI automation for businesses across the metro, starting with a $2,500 AI Ops Audit (the first three clients pay $1,000). If you would rather talk it through in person, we will come to you.
What a local operator gets you
Hire a remote agency and your project tends to live in a ticket queue. Hire us and you get a named human who lives here, answers his own email, and can be at your office. Automation projects live or die on the details of how your business actually runs, and those details come out in a working session at your desk, not on a short discovery call.
Accountability is also simpler when your consultant is down the road. If something breaks, we are across town, not across time zones. And since we are a one-person firm, our reputation in this city is the whole business. We cannot afford to hand you a system that quietly stops working after the invoice clears.
Where we work
We are based in Charleston and cover the whole metro. Downtown, Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island, West Ashley, North Charleston, and Summerville are all an easy drive, and we are glad to come to you for kickoffs, working sessions, and monthly reviews.
Beyond the metro we serve businesses across South Carolina and the Southeast, with on-site visits available. Industrial and plant engagements are quoted individually rather than at published rates.
The work we take on
Most local engagements start with a working session at your desk. The audit is $1,000 for the first three clients, built systems run $5,000 to $15,000 fixed price, and the monthly watch is $1,500 to $2,000. Every number is on one page. If you are comparing providers, the five questions to ask any of us are public.
The systems we build most often for local businesses look like this.
- Quoting, drafted from your own pricing rules and ready for a human to review
- Follow-up on leads and open invoices, so nothing depends on someone remembering
- Reporting, with the numbers you actually want assembled for you on schedule
- Pipeline hygiene, keeping CRM records current instead of letting them decay
- Content operations, drafting and scheduling on a steady cadence
- Back-office paperwork, the forms and data entry nobody wants to do
The engineer behind the firm
O'Donnell AI is one person, and that person is me, Jake O'Donnell. I am a P.E. who ran a commercial CO2 plant before starting this firm. Running a plant teaches a specific discipline, which is that things must keep working when nobody is watching.
I hold my own automation to that standard. I started the fleet in February 2026. By June it had grown to about 70 scheduled jobs and passed 10,000 logged runs. The plate below shows what it is doing right now, so you can see exactly how it performs before you pay us anything.
Questions we hear
How much does an AI consultant cost in Charleston?
Our AI Ops Audit is $2,500 flat and takes about two weeks, and the first three clients pay $1,000. We are new and need case studies we can publish. Automation builds run $5,000 to $15,000 at fixed scope and fixed price. Managed operations is $1,500 to $2,000 per month, month to month, with no long-term contract.
Will you actually come to our office?
Yes. We are based in Charleston and meet in person across the metro, including downtown, Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island, West Ashley, North Charleston, and Summerville. Working sessions at your office are usually where the best automation candidates surface, so we prefer it.
What happens to the automations if we stop working with you?
They keep working, and they stay yours. Everything is built on accounts you own, so you keep the accounts, the keys, the data, and everything we built. AI usage costs pass through at cost with no markup, so leaving does not change what the systems cost to run.
You are a one-person firm. Is that a risk for us?
It is a fair question, and it is part of why we build everything in your accounts rather than ours. If we vanished tomorrow, your systems would keep running, and because you hold the keys and the accounts, another technical person could pick them up. You are never locked to us.
Do you work with industrial or manufacturing operations?
Yes. Jake is a licensed P.E. who ran a commercial CO2 plant. Industrial and plant assessments and builds are quoted individually, not at the published rates on this site.
We are local, say hello
Send us the workflow that eats the most of your week and we will tell you whether it is worth automating, no charge and no pitch. If a conversation is easier, we will meet you for coffee anywhere in the metro.