Your work is scattered.
I put it in order.

Ergon is Nicolas Piperno's AI consultancy for small and mid-sized businesses. I find where your work is spread across the inbox, the spreadsheets and the things only one person knows. I organize it into one clear setup, then build an AI assistant that keeps it that way, with a person approving anything risky.

Book a 20-minute call How scattered is your work? Take the 2-minute check

Your week, as it is now

An inbox that is never emptyhandled
A spreadsheet nobody trustslogged
The same question answered for the fifth timehandled
A weekly report built by handwaits for you

Anything risky waits for a person to approve it.

AI readiness review
Done-for-you AI assistant
Workflow automation and custom tools
Monthly care plan

Your information is split across email, spreadsheets and a few people's memory, so everyone spends part of the day finding things and retyping them.

I start by putting it in order: where each thing is kept, who owns it, what repeats every week. Then an AI assistant keeps it that way. Most AI tools get abandoned because they were set up on top of disorganized information, which is why I organize first.

How scattered is your work?

Ten questions, one tap each, about two minutes. You get a score out of 100, the three things costing your team the most time, and a practical fix for each. Free, no sign-up.

Take the 2-minute check

How it works

We talk for 20 minutes.
You tell me which work takes the most time, and I tell you whether AI is a good fit. For some teams it isn't.
I do the readiness review.
One to two weeks. I look at your actual data and workflows, then hand you a plan with a recommended first project and a price.
I build, then we run it together.
I build the assistant for one workflow and run it with your team approving its work. Once you trust it, it takes on more. The care plan keeps it working after that.

What I offer

AI readiness review

Founding rate3 spotsMy first 3 clients get this review at a founding rate, in exchange for measuring results together and a short case study.

A fixed-scope look at your data and workflows, done in 1 to 2 weeks. I find where your useful information lives, how messy it is, and what it would take to clean it up. You get a written plan that says which workflow to automate first, what it should cost, and what to leave alone.

The review is a paid project with a fixed price. If you hire me to build what it recommends, the review fee comes off the build price, and you keep the plan either way.

Your written plan in 2 weeks, naming at least 3 workflows worth automating with an hours estimate for each, or you don't pay.

Done-for-you AI assistant

I build a working AI agent for one workflow: for example, sorting and drafting replies to customer emails, pulling key terms out of contracts, or preparing a weekly summary from your systems. A person on your team approves anything risky, and you get a daily report of what it did.

If you handle sensitive records, as clinics, law firms and therapists do, I can run the assistant on a private server in your own cloud account with an open-weight model, so client data is never sent to an outside AI company.

Workflow automation and custom tools

I automate multi-step work across the apps your business already uses, so information moves and tasks get done without someone retyping or chasing them. I build these on automation platforms or as custom AI agents, depending on how complex the work is. I also build custom internal tools and dashboards: for example a KPI dashboard, an internal operations app or a client portal.

Monthly care plan

Models get updated and your data keeps changing, so an assistant that worked well in March can start making mistakes by June. On the care plan I monitor the assistant, fix what breaks, and improve it based on what the logs show.

A good fit

Small and mid-sized businesses where a few people lose hours every week to the same repetitive work
Owners who want something running in their business, rather than a strategy deck
Teams without a dedicated tech person, who need someone to build it and stay accountable for it
People who are a bit skeptical of AI and want to see evidence before they spend more

Probably not a fit

You want a chatbot on your website because a competitor has one
You need a large enterprise rollout with a procurement process and a team of consultants
You're looking for someone to replace staff. I build tools that handle repetitive work, and your team stays in charge.
You want results without anyone on your side spending time on review in the first few weeks

About Nicolas

I'm Nicolas Piperno. I run Ergon from Toronto and work with clients wherever they are.

I spent 15 years in strategic planning, operations and transformation work for hospitals, government, consulting firms and social impact organizations. That's where I learned that most problems come from how the work is organized, and new technology rarely fixes that on its own. Working across that many fields also means I often come to a problem as an outsider. The fix is sometimes something one industry does routinely and another has never tried.

Since 2025 I've been building AI products hands-on. At Trilogy I built AI for acquisition due diligence: contract and vendor analysis, compliance dashboards, tools for testing LLMs, and decision workflows for executives. I build retrieval systems (RAG), agent applications and LLM evaluation tools. I'm also co-founder and CTO of Solunas AI.

I like to build. To learn how good software works, I've rebuilt my own versions of Slack, Zendesk and TikTok, added an AI agent to the Zendesk one that answers support tickets, and built a strategy agent for content creators. I build automations for my own businesses every week.

I run my own team of AI agents every day: a chief-of-staff agent, a research analyst and a coding agent. I approve anything risky and read their reports every morning. Your assistant gets the same setup.

I'm a certified PMP and studied at the Schulich School of Business at York University.

Connect on LinkedIn

Writing

I write a weekly article on LinkedIn about putting AI into production. I stick to what the evidence shows and say so when the claims go further.

All articles on LinkedIn

Questions

What does it cost?

It depends on the workflow, so I don't list prices here. On the call I'll give you fixed prices for a few clear options, never an hourly rate. The readiness review is paid, its fee comes off the build if you go ahead, and it comes with the guarantee above.

What happens to my data?

In the readiness review I map where it lives and who can see it before anything gets connected. The assistant only gets access to what it needs for its one workflow. I'll tell you which AI providers process your data and what their retention terms are, and where it matters we can choose providers or settings that don't train on your data. I'm happy to sign an NDA. Your data stays in your own accounts, because I connect to your systems instead of copying your data into mine.

Which tools do you use?

Whatever fits your business and budget. I build on the tools you already pay for, such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and QuickBooks. For the AI itself I pick the model per job. Sometimes that's a well-known one like ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot (often the right pick for teams that have to stay inside Microsoft 365). Sometimes it's an open-weight model that runs privately on your own server. To connect systems I use automation platforms like n8n, Make or Zapier, or I write custom agent code when the work needs more than that. I'm independent: I don't resell any of these tools and I'm not a partner of any vendor, so the recommendation is always what fits you.

What if it breaks?

It will at some point, which is why the checks are there from day one. Anything risky waits for a person to approve it, so a mistake gets caught before it goes out. The daily report shows what the assistant did, and the logs show why. On the monthly care plan I watch for problems and fix them. Without the plan, fixes are billed as needed. Care plan clients get a reply within 1 business day.

Do I need a tech team?

No. Most small businesses don't have one. You need someone who knows the workflow and can spend time reviewing the assistant's work in the first few weeks. I handle the build, the setup and the maintenance.

How long until it's working?

The readiness review takes 1 to 2 weeks. Build time depends on the workflow, and I'll give you a timeline in the review plan before you commit to anything.

Will this replace my staff?

That isn't the goal. The assistants take repetitive work off people so they can spend time on the parts that need judgment. People stay in charge of decisions.

Find out where AI would help your team

Tell me what takes up your team's time, and I'll tell you whether AI is worth it for you.

Your written plan in 2 weeks, naming at least 3 workflows worth automating with an hours estimate for each, or you don't pay.