Work with us
Our private working sessions give your executives the guide from outside that no team can be for itself, and they are built so you reach decisions you own and can stand behind in days rather than months.
In a private session, the executives who share an outcome look at what AI agents are already doing to it and decide how far agentic AI should change it over the next 12 months, from not yet through retrofit to reimagine, and what that changes in the work. They leave with their operating model decisions for that outcome, written so their own team, or whoever they choose to build it, can take them forward. They name the first moves and who owns them, and set an early-warning watch, run by their own team and tied to The River's monthly reading, that flags a stale decision months before the quarterly numbers would and tells them when to decide again.
Private sessions
Each is for one organization's executives, working outcomes they own. All three work the same method from the first question to the last; the difference is what you leave with.
Decide
A half day
You leave with a decision your executives have made together.
It fits when an outcome matters, and the executives who share it don't yet agree how far to take it over the next 12 months, or have never asked the question together.
You get
- An hour with us beforehand, so the session starts at your team's real question
- A shared view of what AI agents are already doing to that outcome
- A decision on how far to take that outcome over the next 12 months, and what it changes in the work
- The operating model decisions for that outcome, which your own team, or whoever you choose to build it, can take forward
- A first pass at the first moves and who owns them
- An early-warning watch, tied to The River's monthly reading, that tells you when to decide again
- A virtual check-in about 90 days later, with the people who took part
Commit
A full day
You leave with operating model decisions for your outcomes, and an owner for every first move.
It fits when the executives who share an outcome are ready to act and need more than a direction: what changes, who does what first, and how they'll know when the decision has gone stale.
You get
- An hour with us beforehand, so the day starts at your team's real question
- Decisions on one or two outcomes, and what has to change as a result
- The operating model decisions for those outcomes, which your own team, or whoever you choose to build it, can take forward
- First moves, each with a named owner
- An early-warning watch, tied to The River's monthly reading, that flags a stale decision months before the quarterly numbers would
- A first pass at how to move the rest of the organization
- A virtual check-in about 90 days later, with the people who took part
Mobilize
Two days
You leave with the wider organization ready to move.
It fits when the outcomes cut across several functions, a wider group of executives has to own them, and you want a night between the first day's work and the final decisions.
You get
- Two hours with us beforehand, in two sittings
- Everything Commit produces, worked in full on up to three outcomes
- The approach for moving the change through the organization
Private sessions run from $15,000 to $45,000, and you pay only if you're satisfied. We invoice only after the session, when we send you the recap of the decisions you made in it. If within ten days you tell us you're not satisfied, there is no fee: no reason needed, and never a partial fee. Travel is reimbursed at cost either way, and a session cancelled late carries a cancellation fee.
Each private session is one working session at one fixed price, with a defined result and no retainer or monthly fee. Your own executives make the decisions, and we guide them through the method. You hear where we would push and where we would wait; what goes in writing is what your executives decided. Every engagement starts with a conversation with Blaine Mathieu, our founder, about where your organization is and what it is trying to achieve, and which of the three fits is settled then. We take on a client only when we're confident we can add real value. The time with us beforehand is part of every session, and so is a copy of The River Doesn't Wait for everyone who takes part. So is a virtual check-in, about 90 days later, with the people who took part.
What stays with your team
The core method is public. It is in The River Doesn't Wait, it is on this site, and you can work it on your own. What a team can't be is its own outsider: even the strongest executive teams get more out of their differences with someone from outside guiding them through the decision. It has to be the right outsider, and four things together make us one:
- We built the method.
- We read how far an organization can go with AI agents every month, in The River.
- We have no AI platform to recommend and no implementation to sell.
- Everyone who does this work for clients has run companies, functions and P&Ls, so we can challenge anyone in the session, the CEO included, and be heard.
A session also puts everyone who owns a piece of the outcome there when the decision is made, so no one hears about it secondhand.
Every decision a session makes rests on assumptions about what AI agents can do. The River reads the constraints behind those assumptions every month, in public. In the session, your executives connect the decision to the constraints it leans on and write down what the decision assumes about each one, so when one of them moves, your team knows which decision to look at again. Your own team runs that check, against a reading that is the same for everyone.
Your own team and the partners you choose carry the work from there, starting from your operating model decisions for the outcomes you worked. We do not need you to pick a particular answer, and the only proof we run on is whether your decision held.
When clients come back
A client brings us back for one of three reasons. What agentic AI can do in its sector has moved faster than its own watch could follow. The people who decide and carry out its strategy have changed, through reorganizations, new roles and new arrivals. Or the company itself has changed, in its budget, its strategy or its goals, or through a merger or acquisition. Behind all three is the same need: a guide for the next hard decision, whether or not the executives in the session have worked the method before.
Other ways to work with us
Who this is for, and who it is not. The four things that have to be true, written so you can tell in a minute which side of them you are on.
Questions about working with us. Who we help, what you leave with, how days can be enough, and what it costs, a paragraph each.
Talks. Keynotes and closed-door executive sessions for a conference's or a technology vendor's audience.
For technology vendors. A talk for your client event, or a private session for one of your strategic accounts.
The next open session. Retrofit or Reimagine, a half-day session for executives from different companies, hosted by AI Realized in San Francisco on 3 December 2026.
Talk to Blaine.
A sentence or two is plenty, and the last field is optional. Blaine reads every one of these himself and replies to the address you give.
Or write to Blaine directly: blaine@therivergroup.ai