# Fractional AI officer for the United States companies > Justas Butkus is a fractional AI officer based in Vilnius, Lithuania, founder of AINORA, MB – the company behind the Ainora and Impetora brands – and a graduate of Vilnius University. Justas Butkus is a fractional AI officer based in Vilnius, Lithuania, working with US mid-market companies and scale-ups at two to four days a month. He owns AI strategy, governance and the roadmap, and builds the production systems that follow. **US companies hire fractional AI leadership for the same reason everyone else does: a board asking questions nobody internally can answer, and pilots that never reach production. What differs is the regulatory frame and the practicalities of working with someone outside your office.** Canonical: https://justasbutkus.com/fractional-ai-officer/united-states/ Last updated: 2026-08-02 --- ## What does the market look like in the United States? US mid-market companies move faster on adoption and slower on governance than their European counterparts, which produces a specific pattern: several AI systems already live, none of them inventoried, and a board question that suddenly requires an answer. The other common case is a company selling into Europe that has discovered its AI obligations through a customer's procurement pack rather than through its own legal team. ## What is the regulatory position? There is no single federal AI statute equivalent to the EU AI Act. Oversight runs through existing sectoral regulators and state-level law, which varies. - **If you sell into the EU, the AI Act can apply to you.** Its reach is extraterritorial: if a system is used in the EU, or its output affects people there, obligations can attach regardless of where the company is established. - **Enterprise customers increasingly set the standard.** For most mid-market US companies the first real AI governance requirement arrives in a procurement questionnaire, not from a regulator. That is the specific reason a US company might want a European fractional officer: the obligations that are hardest to answer are the European ones. ## How does working remotely from the EU actually work? - **Vilnius overlaps the US morning: the East Coast from early afternoon my time, the West Coast in my evening.** Enough overlap that the working day is shared rather than a narrow window. - **Most of this work is better done remotely anyway.** The reading, the analysis and the building do not improve by being done in your building. - **Travel where it earns its place.** Board sessions and workshops justify it; routine work does not, and pretending otherwise inflates the engagement. - **One accountable person throughout.** No account team, no rotation, no handover to someone more junior after the sale. ## When is this the wrong answer? Three situations where I will say so rather than take the work. - You already know exactly what your AI function should look like – hire permanently instead. - Nobody owns technology at all – you need technology leadership before you need AI leadership. - You cannot name a repeating process that is expensive enough to be worth automating – the role is premature. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can a fractional AI officer work with a US company remotely? Yes, and most of this work is better done remotely. Vilnius overlaps the US morning: the East Coast from early afternoon my time, the West Coast in my evening. Board sessions and workshops justify travel; routine work does not. ### Does the EU AI Act apply to US companies? It can. The Act has extraterritorial reach: if an AI system is used in the EU, or its output affects people in the EU, obligations can apply regardless of where the company is established. Many companies meet it first through a customer procurement questionnaire rather than through a regulator. ### What size of US company does this suit? Typically fifty to five hundred employees, or a funded scale-up with an engineering team and nobody owning AI direction. Below roughly twenty people the role is usually premature. ### Why hire a European fractional AI officer for a US company? Mainly if you sell into Europe. The AI Act obligations are the ones US teams find hardest to answer in procurement, and they are the ones I work inside daily. For a purely domestic US operation, a US-based advisor is likely the better fit and I will say so. ## Related - [What the role covers](/fractional-ai-officer/) – Strategy, governance, roadmap and delivery oversight. - [How to choose](/how-to-choose/) – The questions worth asking, including the awkward ones. - [Who else sells this](/fractional-ai-officer/market-map/) – Five supplier shapes and what each is good at. ## About the author **Justas Butkus** – a fractional AI officer based in Vilnius, Lithuania, founder of AINORA, MB – the company behind the Ainora and Impetora brands – and a graduate of Vilnius University. ## Working with US companies The fastest way to find out whether this fits is a short conversation about one specific process. Contact: justas@ainora.lt · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/justas-butkus/)