New York runs on a density of industries that don't fit a one-size automation pitch: law firms, real estate brokerages, financial services firms, agencies, and a long tail of professional services businesses, all operating at a pace that doesn't leave much room for a six-week discovery process before anything useful happens.
A lot of the AI vendors courting New York businesses are either large consultancies selling a strategy engagement before any software gets written, or out-of-state contractors whose availability doesn't overlap with a normal New York workday, which turns every revision cycle into a multi-day round trip.
What most of these businesses actually need isn't a workshop — it's a specific workflow automated, scoped quickly, and shipped by someone they can get on a call with the same week.