MIT's 2025 State of AI in Business study found 95% of enterprise GenAI pilots deliver no measurable P&L impact — despite $30–40B invested. The failures are organizational, not model-quality (RAND 2024 reached the same root cause). Meanwhile frontier token prices fell 10–50×/yr (a16z, Epoch AI) while reasoning-tier pricing stays 10–30× higher and suppliers admit they're losing money. The window for cheap AI experimentation is closing. We get you into the 5% — strategy + platform — before it does.
MIT's State of AI in Business 2025 (NANDA) found 95% of GenAI pilots fail — a "learning gap," not a model problem: misaligned goals, weak data, no integration into workflows. RAND 2024 (Ryseff et al., 65 practitioners) reached the same root cause. Cite-cap and audit-by-design fix exactly these.
Token prices fell 10–50×/yr (a16z LLMflation, Epoch AI). Reasoning-tier now 10–30× pricier; cheap legacy models retiring on schedule; OpenAI publicly losing money on Pro. Cheap experiments end ≤24 mo.
EO 14028, NIST AI RMF, FCRA expansion, CMMC 2.0 — all require AI decision-level auditability. ARKONA was multi-tenant + cite-cap + US-only-AI from commit zero.
The companies that cross the divide don't build alone. MIT found buying from specialized partners and integrating deeply succeeds about 3× more often than internal DIY builds — aimed at back-office friction, where the savings are. That is the Intrepid model: COMET maps the strategy to your regulators, ARKONA operates it after we leave.
Intrepid sells exactly two things. Strategic consulting that maps your AI and cyber posture to the regulations that govern you, and the AI-native platform that operates the strategy after we leave. No hands-on assessment, no hourly advisory, no firmware work — we refer that out.
Cognitive Operations & Mission Effectiveness Taxonomy
Five-rung fixed-price ladder, scored across five governance domains (Conceptual · Operational · Mission · Engineering · Transition). Operationalized through Voyager — our governance dashboard that scores your posture, aligns it to NIST AI RMF, and exports Capella/Arcadia MBSE artifacts your architecture team can keep.
| Briefing | Half-day workshop. 1-page heat-map of your posture vs. your regulators. |
| Discovery | Two-week inventory + framework scoring (CMMC, NIST 800-53, FCRA). |
| Assessment | Six-week deep evaluation in Voyager. Prioritized remediation roadmap + current/future-state model. |
| Implementation | Build phase. Deploy ARKONA + integrate with your stack. |
| Retainer | Ongoing fractional governance + platform operations. |
Multi-tenant, audit-by-design, US-only models.
See ARKONA running in production →
Contact us for subscription details →
Intrepid is a Maryland-based innovation firm founded by two brothers, hungry to add tangible value to the businesses we partner with and the operators we serve. Together we bring 35+ years of combined experience across Government, GovCon, and corporate infrastructure. We don't sell hours. We sell outcomes that hold up under regulator scrutiny, plus the AI-native platform (ARKONA) that operates the strategy between engagements.
Cybersecurity engineer. Built the platform stack. PhD in AI/ML beginning September 2026. Deep federal-contracting background. Holds the Maryland LLC. The ARKONA platform itself runs at arkonaresearch.com — that's where you can see what we ship.
jhon.arango@intrepidcyber.aiOperations and business leadership across COMET engagements + ARKONA platform commercialization. Corporate-infrastructure background brings the operator's lens to every assessment.
jonathan.arango@intrepidcyber.aiOne email. One sentence about what your auditor is asking for — or where your AI initiative stalled. We respond inside two business days with a Briefing scope and a calendar window. The Briefing is a half-day workshop; output is a 1-page heat-map of your posture vs. your regulators plus a comprehensive report on AI implementation. The heat-map and report are yours; no commitment to climb the COMET ladder. Contact us for full pricing and scoping.