Find the right AI implementation partner, with no one selling to you.
Pluris is a vetted network of independent AI implementation partners. We match private equity firms and enterprise teams with the specialists best suited to their problem, who typically move faster and cost less than the big consulting firms. Clients bring a real problem, and we return three to five expert perspectives on approach, timeline and cost, usually within a week.
Most AI decisions get made on one opinion, from someone who's selling.
When a leadership team decides to invest in AI, the first firm in the room usually ends up doing the work. The proposal might be right. It might also be the wrong shape, the wrong price, or the wrong team, and there's no easy way to tell without seeing the alternatives.
Pluris helps teams find the right partner to build it, and get clear on what "it" should be first. We route a defined problem to the practitioners best placed to solve it, then put their answers side by side.
That side-by-side view is where most of the value sits. You see what's worth building, how different teams would build it, and what it should realistically take: the approach, the cost, the timeline, and the risks each expert flags. Teams usually come to us at one of two points, deciding where AI makes sense across a business or pressure-testing a build that's already been scoped. Either way, it ends with an introduction to the partner who fits.
How teams use Pluris.
Bring a problem
Describe what you're exploring in a short conversation. We shape it into a blinded brief, match it to three to five practitioners with relevant delivered work, and return their perspectives side by side in about a week.
or
Browse what's been built
The AI Use Case Library holds case studies from the practitioners who did the work, with cost, timeline and results for each. See something close to your problem and we'll connect you to the team behind it.
Work with whoever fits
If a team resonates, we make the introduction, and you work directly together from there. There's no obligation to hire anyone.
Built for the people accountable for the outcome.
Private equity funds
Operating partners and deal teams sizing AI opportunities across a portfolio, or building tools for the fund itself.
Portfolio companies
CEOs and executive teams under a value creation plan who need to know which AI bets are worth making, and who should build them.
Enterprise teams
Leaders evaluating a vendor proposal or a custom build who want an independent read before they commit.
Free for clients. Here's how we get paid.
Free can make people suspicious, so we'd rather be plain about it. Clients never pay Pluris. When a client hires a firm we introduced, that firm pays us 10% of the project's value. We have no preferred partners and no fee from anyone for placement.
Because clients don't pay us, we have to keep earning the relationship. So we build things they can use on their own: the AI Use Case Library, AI Opportunity Maps that show where AI fits across a portfolio, and practical guides written with experts from the network.
What clients pay, for the brief, the expert perspectives and the introduction.
What a firm pays Pluris, only when it wins a project from an introduction.
Your name goes only to experts who want the work, and only if you choose to engage.
Practitioners who have shipped the work.
The Pluris network is made up of independent AI implementation firms and senior practitioners: builders, technical advisors and AI-native services organizations who have taken AI from pilot to production inside real businesses.
We match on expertise and experience, using detailed expert profiles, real cases from the AI Use Case Library, and how each expert has responded to similar briefs before.
The library is the network's work. Pluris writes and publishes it, and the credit belongs to the teams who built it.
Stu Willson
Founder of Pluris · Host of Proof of Work: AI Value Creation
Stu has spent his career building ways for people to get to the right expertise fast. He started as an analyst and later partner at a hedge fund, co-founded Radicle, an enterprise research and expert network business, and was a partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at the venture studio Prehype.
“I was looking to buy a business and kept coming back to AI as one of the core value levers. If I was going to do this well, I needed to get smarter on it, so I started meeting the people actually building it.”
While running his own search to acquire a company and working as an executive-in-residence at a lower middle market private equity firm, Stu began building a bench of AI practitioners he could work with. He started connecting them to companies in his network, and saw how wide the gap was between the teams that needed AI expertise and the people who had it.
That project was called Just Curious, and it became a podcast, a newsletter and a growing network. In January 2026 he turned it into a company, Pluris.
He still hosts Proof of Work, interviewing advisors, operators and investors, many of them from the Pluris network or its clients, about what it actually took to get AI into production and create value.
Formerly Just Curious.
Pluris began as Just Curious, an interview series and newsletter about how companies put AI into production. The interviews continue as the Proof of Work: AI Value Creation podcast and the Proof of Work newsletter. Pluris is operated by Radicle Labs, Inc. and based in Los Angeles.
What people ask before they start.
What is Pluris?+–
Pluris is a vetted network of independent AI implementation partners. We match private equity firms and enterprise teams with the specialists best suited to their problem, who typically move faster and cost less than the big consulting firms.
How does Pluris make money?+–
Clients pay nothing. When a client hires a firm Pluris introduced, that firm pays Pluris 10% of the project's value. We earn the same whichever firm the client chooses, so we have no reason to steer anyone.
How do you choose which experts see a brief?+–
We match on expertise and experience, using detailed expert profiles, real cases from the AI Use Case Library, and how each expert has responded to similar briefs before.
Who owns the relationship after an introduction?+–
You do. Once an introduction is made, you and the firm talk and contract directly with each other.
Is Pluris the same company as Just Curious?+–
Yes. Pluris began as Just Curious, an interview series and newsletter about AI in production. The interviews continue as the Proof of Work: AI Value Creation podcast. Both are operated by Radicle Labs, Inc.
Who founded Pluris?+–
Stu Willson, a former hedge fund analyst and partner who co-founded the expert network Radicle and was a partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Prehype. He started Pluris in January 2026 and hosts the Proof of Work podcast.