Tillinghast Technologies · AI Systems & Strategic Consulting

We don't just advise on AI.
We build it.

Agentic systems are
the flagship.
The practice is broader.

Skeptic to believer.
One afternoon.— Paralegal, regional law firm, 2025

A small, focused practice working at the intersection of emerging technology and operational reality. Our flagship is agentic AI systems — agents that do the work autonomously, end-to-end. Around that: software engineering, data infrastructure, hardware and sensors, and the technical evaluation that ties it all together. For operating companies losing hours to manual work. For investors who need honest technical eyes on AI companies and portfolio efficiency.

Live in production Law firm research: 6 hrs → 18 min · Day 1 adoption
How an agent system works
REQUEST COORDINATOR AGENT 01 AGENT 02 AGENT 03 DATA · TOOLS RESULT
Software · Built by this practice

Cipher

beta

The pattern above, productized.

A turnkey AI team for law and finance — briefed and ready in two minutes. Answer five questions; a coordinator and three to four specialists deploy, briefed on your practice and the work you actually do. Built on the same architecture that powers our law firm engagement, packaged for solo practitioners and small firms.

Now in early access · Built on Claude · SOC 2 Type II in progress
Visit Cipher
cipher.ai NOW IN EARLY ACCESS · LAW & FINANCE Your team. Briefed and ready in two minutes. Cipher deploys a team of AI specialists, briefed on your standards. Deploy your team ↗ See how it works → Free for 7 days. No credit card. TEAM / LIVE 04 SPECIALISTS Whitfield & Co. Coordinator LEAD Research Analyst SOURCES Document Review FILES Drafting Associate OUTPUT All specialists online · Ready to work
What we do

Agentic systems are the flagship.
The practice is broader.

Most engagements start at agents — they are the clearest way to turn hours of manual work into minutes of autonomous output. But the right answer isn't always an agent. Sometimes it's a custom internal tool. Sometimes it's a sensor pipeline, a data architecture, or an honest evaluation of someone else's tech. Working across the full stack means we can see what's actually needed — not just what we know how to sell.

Primary · Agentic Systems
01
Research Agent Teams
Multi-agent systems that go deep on a topic and return structured, cited summaries. The law firm deployment uses this architecture — applies equally to financial research, competitive intelligence, clinical literature, and regulatory review.
02
Personal Assistant Agents
Monitor email and communications, synthesize what needs attention, draft responses, flag urgency. Operate inside tools the team already uses — Slack, Teams, Discord, email. Zero learning curve.
03
Operations Monitors
Agents that watch a business process and surface exceptions before they become problems. Overdue invoices, SLA breaches, inventory thresholds, compliance deadlines — caught automatically, not discovered after the fact.
04
Document Intelligence
Agents that read contracts, reports, inboxes, or any structured document type and extract information automatically. No more manual review of the same document format week after week.
05
Meeting & Comm Synthesis
Process call recordings, meeting transcripts, and email threads. Decisions, action items, and summaries extracted without anyone having to do it manually. Delivered to the channel the team already uses.
06
Custom Internal Tools
Lightweight AI-powered interfaces built specifically for how a particular team works. Not a generic SaaS product adapted to the workflow — something built from the ground up for the people who will use it.
Beyond agents · The full technology stack
07
Software Engineering
Full-stack systems — web applications, APIs, internal platforms, custom tools. Built clean, shipped fast, designed to be maintained. Software is the substrate underneath most agent work; we build it where buying a SaaS doesn't fit.
08
Hardware & Sensors
When the problem extends to the physical world: sensor integrations, edge devices, IoT pipelines, and the data flows that connect them to AI models. Computational photography, computer vision, and embedded systems where they earn their weight.
09
Data Infrastructure
Pipelines, warehouses, ETL, vector stores. AI without good data underneath is theatre — we build both, in the right order, so each layer earns its place. From raw ingestion through to query-ready, governed data.
10
Analytics & Modeling
Dashboards, business intelligence, and the modeling that turns raw signal into business decisions. Custom machine learning where off-the-shelf doesn't fit. Not just LLMs — the broader ML toolchain when the problem calls for it.
11
Specialized AI Systems
Beyond agents — computer vision, generative AI integrations, fine-tuning, and ML systems custom-built for specific problems. Twenty-five years across the modern AI toolchain, applied to whatever the problem actually needs.
12
Research & Evaluation
Vendor evaluation for organizations cutting through the noise. Technical due diligence for investors evaluating AI companies. Architecture review for teams building internally. Memos, not decks. Recommendations, not hedges.
For VC & PE firms

Technical due diligence on AI companies, retained advisory on portfolio AI questions, and rapid deployments inside portfolio companies — all built on the same daily practice of shipping production systems.

See engagements →
In practice

People don't believe AI is useful until they see it work.

Three voices from one engagement at a regional law firm. Same project. Three perspectives. Same realization.

“I'd given up on ChatGPT. Then I saw an agent do my research in eighteen minutes. I was relying on it the same day.”
Senior Paralegal
“Six hours of research used to bottleneck every matter. Now it's a Discord message and a wait. We process more cases with the same team.”
Trial Attorney
“There was no tool to adopt. The agent fits where the work already happens. We noticed because the backlog stopped.”
Managing Partner
18 min Down from 4–6 hrs
Live In production · 2025
Day 1 Adoption · No training
The stack

Evaluated.
Integrated. Shipped.

A working snapshot of the tools we evaluate, build with, and integrate — across AI models, agent frameworks, software engineering, data infrastructure, and hardware. New options ship weekly. The list isn't a commitment; it's a signal that we stay current at the frontier so clients don't have to. The right tool gets picked for the job.

Models & AI platformsEvaluating & deploying
C
Claude
CC
Claude Code
GPT
OpenAI / GPT
G
Gemini
LL
Llama / Meta
MS
Mistral
OC
OpenCLAW
HF
Hugging Face
AZ
Azure AI
Agent & orchestration frameworksBuilding with
MCP
MCP Protocol
LC
LangChain
LG
LangGraph
LI
LlamaIndex
n8
n8n
Z
Zapier
Engineering & infrastructureSoftware substrate
Py
Python
TS
TypeScript
RX
React / Next.js
N
Node.js
Dk
Docker
AW
AWS / Lambda
Vc
Vercel
Sb
Supabase
Data & analyticsFoundation underneath
Pg
Postgres
SQL
SQL
Sw
Snowflake
Db
Databricks
dbt
dbt
Pn
Pinecone / Vector DBs
Lk
Looker / Tableau
PBI
Power BI
Pd
Pandas / NumPy
Hardware & sensorsWhen it touches the physical world
RPi
Raspberry Pi
Ar
Arduino
ESP
ESP32 / Edge
IoT
IoT pipelines
CV
Computer vision
📷
Camera / image
🎙
Audio / speech
Delivery & integrationsWhere systems meet people
SL
Slack
DC
Discord
TG
Telegram
MT
Microsoft Teams
Email / Gmail
SMS
SMS / Twilio
SF
Salesforce
HS
HubSpot
NT
Notion
AS
Asana / Linear
GD
Google Workspace
M3
Microsoft 365
Engagements
How we engage

Four ways to work.
Same working method.

For operating companies: we find where time and money are being lost and build systems that fix it. For investors: we evaluate the technology, the team, and the moat — and ship rapid deployments inside portfolio companies. Both draw from the same daily practice of building production systems.

01
Build

Custom systems built end-to-end — agentic AI, software, data infrastructure, sensor integrations. Scoped and priced upfront. Wired into the tools your team already uses; no behavior change required.

2–8 weeks
02
Advise

Retained technical advisor for ongoing questions — what to build internally, what to buy, what's worth piloting, what's hype. Real-time fluency at the frontier, available when needed.

Quarterly
03
Evaluate

Technical due diligence on AI companies for investors. Vendor evaluation for organizations choosing tools. Architecture review for teams building internally. Delivered as a memo with a clear recommendation.

1–3 weeks
04
Embed

Embedded engagement inside the team — usually 4 to 12 weeks. We sit alongside your engineers, ship code, transfer knowledge. Particularly valuable post-acquisition or for organizations standing up internal AI capability.

4–12 weeks
Market context · Why this work, why now
240 hrs
Saved per professional per year · $19,000 unlocked annually with well-deployed AI
— Thomson Reuters, 2025 Future of Professionals
160–280 bps
EBITDA improvement within 24 months from well-executed AI strategy
— BCG, 2024
Where we work

The pattern is the same.
The system adapts.

Every sector has the same underlying dynamic: highly capable people spending meaningful time on work that is repetitive, information-intensive, and below their level. The agent system is always different. The opportunity is always the same.

The law firm was the first deployment. The same architecture — agent teams with authenticated access to domain-specific data, delivered through interfaces people already use — applies across every professional services environment and most operational ones.

→ Don't see your sector here? If your organization has people doing repetitive research, document processing, or information work — it's worth a conversation. The evaluation tells us what's real.

Law FirmsResearch · Review · Brief drafting
Financial AdvisoryMarket research · Reporting · Monitoring
InsuranceClaims · Underwriting · Policy review
Accounting & CPAData extraction · Client prep · Compliance
Healthcare & ClinicalLiterature · Admin · Follow-up
Real EstateProperty research · Lead triage · Summaries
Marketing & PR AgenciesCompetitive intel · Briefs · Reporting
Recruiting & HRScreening · Outreach · Scheduling
PE Portfolio CompaniesOperational efficiency · Margin
VC / PE FirmsDue diligence · Thesis development
The firm

A builder's firm.
One working method.

Tillinghast Technologies is a small, focused practice working at the intersection of emerging technology and operational reality. We build software, agentic systems, data pipelines, and hardware-aware tools — and we evaluate the technology landscape for organizations that need clear answers, not vendor pitches.

The firm is built around a single principle: a working system that saves real time and real money is the only argument that matters. Whether the work is a multi-agent research tool, a custom data platform, an embedded sensor pipeline, or a technical assessment for an investment thesis — the deliverable is the same. Something that works, measured against something that did not.

Founder & Principal
James Tillinghast

Twenty-five years across design, engineering, and product — most recently at Microsoft and Meta, working deep in generative AI, machine learning, computational photography, computer vision, and the enterprise software underneath them. Career spans the full stack: visual design, product management, software engineering, ML, and applied AI systems.

What matters for the firm is the daily practice now. Multi-agent systems running in production, tested against real workflows with real users. When a new model or framework ships, he's in it the same week. That breadth — and the willingness to refuse to be just one thing — is what lets the practice see what's actually needed across software, hardware, data, and AI.

Generative AI Agentic Systems Machine Learning Computer Vision Data Systems Software Engineering Hardware & Sensors Product & UX Technical Evaluation

Let's find what's
worth building.

No intake forms. No deck requests. Reach out directly — we'll talk through the problem and whether we can help. Whether you're losing hours inside an operating company or evaluating AI at the deal or portfolio level, the conversation starts the same way.

Based in
Lake Como, NJ · Available anywhere