AI Lab & Consultancy

I ran a documented crisis 126 times. The path the experts chose was on the map — in its rarest region.

Most strategies plan for what usually happens. The leverage is in knowing what rarely happens — and what almost always does. Capability you own, not dependency you manage.

Read the working note→ Work with me→

You’re holding a decision the usual tools don’t fit.

It has a date on it. It turns on people — several of them — whose moves you can’t fully predict, because they’re deciding too. A spreadsheet flattens that. A pro-and-con list pretends the other actors hold still. And the stakes are high enough that “we’ll figure it out as we go” doesn’t quite settle you.

That’s the shape of problem I work on: decisions with many actors and real uncertainty about how they’ll move. Not because anyone can predict how it turns out — no one can — but because you can map how a decision could go, every move out in the open, before you commit to one.

One Practice, Two Rooms

A consulting practice and a small lab.

SaltationAI is both. The lab is where the methods are tested against real material before they become advice. The practice is where you get the judgment — and keep the capability. The lab isn’t separate from the consulting; it’s where the consulting is kept honest. When a method holds up against a real situation in the lab, it earns its place in the practice. When it doesn’t, I learn that here — not in front of you.

The Lab

Where the work is kept honest, in public.

Enter the lab→ The Practice

Where the judgment, and the capability, become yours.

Work with me→
From the Lab

Recent notes

Methods Note

What we refuse to claim

A claim about AI is only as trustworthy as the weak claims sitting next to it. So here is the standard from my methods page turned on my own three projects, by name — sorted into what I've shown, what I've built toward, what I intend, and what doesn't exist yet.
Field Note

Why agents need to be taught how to read

Retrieval hands an agent the right paragraph. It doesn't hand over the judgment about what that paragraph means. Doxa is a format built to make that judgment portable — and the test that matters hasn't run yet.
Case Study

From 4 to 1: An End-to-End Technology Overhaul for a Strategic Planning Firm

How Marv Weidner of Managing Results used AI to dramatically reduce interview processing time while improving the quality of what he delivered to clients.
All notes→
Case Study

What this looks like in practice

I work with a firm that does strategic planning for city and county governments. Their process involves intensive interviews — sometimes a dozen or more per project — with elected officials, department heads, and staff, synthesizing everything into strategic plans.

The old way

Intensive interviews, sometimes a dozen per project

Someone would sit in the meeting taking notes, then spend hours typing them up, then more hours pulling out themes and insights. It worked, but it was exhausting. And they always felt like something was getting lost.

The change

About two weeks to implement

Now they record their interviews with decent equipment, get clean transcripts automatically, and run those transcripts through a simple AI workflow we built together — using tools they already had. The AI pulls out themes, flags important quotes, and drafts initial summaries: all in minutes.

36 hours saved

~4 hours per interview × 12 interviews

They own this completely. It runs in their existing accounts, on tools they already knew. They understand how it works, they've already tweaked it themselves, and they've started building new workflows for other parts of their process — without my help.

That's the leap. Not just faster work, but better work — with the real language of the people who were in the room.

Read the full case study
How We Work

Two ways to work together.

The Brief

$500

A focused discovery session. You leave with a map of where AI genuinely fits your work — and an ignition prompt to start building your own Workshop. If we go further, the $500 credits toward the Build.

The Build

$3,750

A month of building, together. We build your Workshop — an AI-native working environment you own and grow — and you finish able to run and extend it without me.

How engagements work→
Colin Kloecker, founder of SaltationAI
About

Hi, I'm Colin.

For more than a decade, I worked at the intersection of environment, art, and public engagement: documentary films, publications, exhibitions, artist-scientist collaborations. The partners ranged from universities to water treatment facilities, and the work always started the same way: listening carefully, then building something together. That's still how I work best.

When ChatGPT was released in November 2022, I felt something unexpected: recognition. Not a replacement for human collaboration, but a new kind of partner — a way to move faster on the tedious stuff and spend more time on work that matters.

I spent the next year immersed in this. Not as an engineer, but as someone trying to understand what AI means for how we work. Friends started asking questions. Then their colleagues. Then their clients.

Now I help people who are too busy doing their own work to track every new AI development. I listen first, understand how you work, then show you where AI fits. That's the order it has to happen in.

I still have moments where AI reveals a possibility so surprising I have to get up and take a walk. That's the feeling I want to share with you.

Get in touch→

Client testimonials

During peak season, we were fielding hundreds of calls and emails from grantees every week. Colin's chatbot didn't replace our team - it gave us capacity we didn't have. Over a thousand conversations handled, zero budget surprises, and our staff could finally focus on the people who needed more than a quick answer.

John Bly

Director of Operations + Special Projects, Metro Blooms

Colin's guidance transformed my initial avoidance into excitement to experiment and try new things. I've been delighted by this process and thrilled about the new possibilities SaltationAI is helping us explore.

Katie Eukel

Co-Founder/Principal, Seiche

Most consultants show up with a solution already in mind. Colin listened first. He understood how our process actually worked before suggesting anything. Now our team focuses on insights, not transcription. Honestly, the work is better. Our findings have an authenticity that our old notes couldn't capture. It all runs on tools we built together.

Marv Weidner

CEO, Managing Results, LLC

The Name

sal·ta·tion

/salˈtāSH(ə)n/ · noun

A sudden leap. In biology: when gradual change gives way to something genuinely new. Not incremental improvement — a shift in what's possible.

Start Here

Start a scenario.

If you’re holding a decision with this shape — several actors, a date, real stakes — tell me about it. No deposit, no sales call.

Start a Scenario

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