How AEstruct Works

Method, not tools.

The thinking behind the Scans, Fix Projects, Bundles, and Fractional retainers, plus what it looks like when an engagement runs end-to-end.

The premise

Media and entertainment shops between 20 and 100 staff are the audience nobody serves well. Enterprise consultancies are too expensive and not media-and-entertainment-native. Tool vendors solve for their tool, not your operation. Indie creators sell what worked for them, which often doesn't generalize. AEstruct sits in that gap.

Five principles

Workflows are the unit of analysis, not tools.

A tool that helps one workflow but breaks two others is a net loss.

Back office before creative.

Back-office workflows have clearer success metrics (hours saved, errors avoided, filings on time) and lower creative risk. They are where AI compounds the fastest. Creative-side AI is real and worth doing, but it isn't where AEstruct leads, and creative work remains consulting-only at AEstruct, not productized.

Vendor-neutral.

AEstruct does not resell tools, take referral fees, or have preferred-partner agreements with AI vendors. Recommendations are based on fit. When two tools fit, we say so.

Right-sized governance.

AI policy at a 35-person production company should not look like AI policy at Disney. We apply the relevant frameworks (NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act, OECD principles) at SME proportion. M&E-specific overlays (SAG-AFTRA, WGA, DGA, IATSE AI clauses, training-data IP, C2PA, state right-of-publicity laws) are the parts most enterprise governance work misses.

The third-transition frame.

Emil worked two M&E technology transitions from the inside: the IT side of Court TV's analog-to-tapeless conversion, and truTV's move to the cloud, the first Turner network to run entirely there. AI is the third. The patterns are shockingly consistent.

How an engagement runs

  1. Conversation first. A 30-minute call. We confirm fit on both sides.
  2. Scan. 1–2 weeks. Diagnostic and prioritized scope.
  3. Decide what to fix first. You decide. We write the SOW.
  4. Fix. 4–24 weeks per surface.
  5. Retainer (optional, default inside Bundles). Six months of Lite Fractional.