I pick, install, and run practical AI for Maine small businesses. Phone agents, booking automation, the back-office systems behind them: whatever the audit says will pay for itself. And I would rather lose the sale than install something you don't need.
Around here the suspicion is earned. This industry has sold owners a decade of snake oil, and everyone has a story. So the work runs like a trade job: I quote it, I install it, you watch it run on your own phones, and if it stops earning its keep, it comes back out.
Maine
Owner-operated
Since 2024
Every price is on this page. If you already know what you need, call or email me and we start. If you don't, the audit exists to find out.
Start here; it tells you which of the rest you need.
I spend time in your business, then write you a short report: two or three places AI would save you money, what each would cost, and where it would be wasted. Sometimes the answer is the phone agent below. Sometimes it's a cheap plugin I don't sell.
$149one-time
The most common install.
An AI answers your phone 24/7. It books jobs, handles the common questions, and texts you a summary of every call, so a plumber under a sink never loses a job to voicemail. I set it up, tune it until it sounds like your counter person, and stay on the hook for changes.
The caller gets a confirmation of what they asked for, who will follow up, and the required opt-out language.
The owner gets the lead's name, number, request, urgency, and location. When the call includes a time, the text can include a calendar file too.
$249per month
About what a live answering service charges for 30 calls.
Ninety minutes for chambers, trade associations, and business groups: live demos, what these tools cost, what your competitors are doing with them, and a long Q&A. The basic questions are the good ones; bring those.
$500flat
A standing retainer. I keep your systems running and build what the business needs next: booking automation, inventory alerts, quote follow-ups, internal tools. When something breaks, you text me, and the person who built it fixes it.
$499per month
Talk to the demo line, or write me directly. I answer the same day, because the whole company is one person with one inbox.
In person where I can get to you. We run it against your own phone line and booking calendar, and nothing goes live until you have heard it answer the way you would.
Everything is cancel-anytime for the first 60 days. The call summaries make the math plain: either it books jobs you would have missed, or I take it out and you stop paying.
Awakened Systems Group is owner-operated: I scope the work, install it, and support it. I also still work at Tyler Technologies, deploying permitting, planning, and code-enforcement systems for local governments. That decade of enterprise work taught me to build systems people can depend on after I drive away.
I also have ADHD, diagnosed in my late 20s, and these tools started as things I built for my own brain: reminders that don't depend on me remembering, a phone that doesn't depend on me picking up. If it's on my price list, I already run it in my own business.
Staying employed lets me keep this company small on purpose. There is no sales team, office lease, or outside investor to support, so overhead stays low and every price can stay on the page. I limit the client roster to work I can support personally.
Maine is home. When you want something changed, you call me and I answer. When I'm not working, I'm usually in the woods hiking with my dog.
I keep a bench of running experiments, funded out of my own pocket and used in my own business. The current four:
Compliance and transparency software for Maine's craft cannabis industry. In pilot with a Maine operator.
An AI front desk for a Maine real estate agent: buyer and seller intake, public listing lookup, lead capture, and a private call portal.
A road-trip command center for van-lifers. Overnight spots, routes, AI trip planning, dog-friendly layers. Built because I wanted it.
The AI operating system that runs my own life and business. It's the test bench for everything on this page.
…plus a couple dozen retired ones. The failures were cheap, and no client ever paid for one.
Not the way I install it. The AI front desk catches the calls your people already miss: nights, weekends, both-hands-busy moments. Most callers who hit voicemail never call back. The goal is fewer lost jobs, not fewer people.
No. You get a phone that answers itself and a text summary of every call. There is nothing to log into and nothing to configure; adjusting the system is what the monthly fee pays me to do.
Before launch we write its rules together, including what it may promise and what it must hand off to you. You listen to test calls before any customer does, and every live call keeps a transcript you can read that night.
Sometimes it is the right answer, and when the audit says so, I set that one up instead. The difference is what happens afterward: a software company will not drive to Topsham, sit at your counter, and tune the thing until it sounds like you. I will.
Yes, and for less money, if you have the evenings to wire it up, tune the voice, and re-fix it every time a provider changes their API. Some owners would enjoy that; if you're one of them, call me and I'll tell you which stack I'd start with. Everyone else is paying me to have made those mistakes already, and to pick up the phone when it breaks.
$149 once for the audit, or $249 for a first month of the front desk. Both carry the same 60-day exit: if the summaries show it is not booking work, you stop paying and I take it out.
The pledge
The audit sometimes ends with "keep your money." It has to, or nothing else on this page means much. When the right answer is a better answering machine, or nothing at all, that is the answer you get.
Shawn Garland, Awakened Systems Group