Workshops & Talks
From $0 · first chamber talk free
Practical AI training for chambers of commerce, business associations, and individual companies. Lunch-and-learns, half-day workshops, full-day intensives.
See Workshop Formats →PillarPoint is a Richland-based AI advisory practice serving the Tri-Cities and the broader Pacific Northwest. We run workshops for chambers and trade associations, audit operations for companies considering AI, and serve as fractional AI advisors for owners who need a steady hand without a full-time hire.
Pick the sentence closest to your situation. Each one points to a different way we can work together.
Workshop, audit, ongoing advisory, or self-serve tools. Pick one, or start with a free conversation and we'll tell you which one fits.
Practical AI training for chambers of commerce, business associations, and individual companies. Lunch-and-learns, half-day workshops, full-day intensives.
See Workshop Formats →Two weeks. We review your operations, talk to your team, and deliver a written report covering where AI saves real time and money, and where it's the wrong tool.
How the Audit Works →8 to 10 hours per month of strategic guidance, on-call between sessions. For owners who need a steady hand without committing to a full-time hire.
How the Engagement Runs →Small, focused, self-serve apps that do one job well. Built on infrastructure we run ourselves in Richland. Nine tools live, more shipping every couple of weeks.
Try the Tools →
There's no shortage of national AI consultancies. Here's what a local practice gives you that they can't.
Coffee at Bookwalter. Lunch at Anthony's. Site visits to your shop or restaurant. Most consulting work is better when you can see the room.
Vineyards and orchards. Construction shops. Real estate offices. Family-run restaurants. Small healthcare practices. PNNL contractors. Not the kind of accounts a Bay Area consultancy is built for.
Most of what's marketed as AI right now is repackaged search or fragile demos. We tell you which is which, and where the technology actually saves you money.
You will leave at least one conversation hearing "you don't need AI for this. You need a spreadsheet and a Tuesday." That's the whole point.
PillarShield is live and ready for early adopters. It runs on Google Cloud Vertex AI by default, with an option to deploy locally if you require that setup. Not a re-seller wrapping someone else's chatbot.
The fee schedule is set so a Pasco restaurant or a West Richland real-estate office can afford to engage. No five-figure retainers. No corporate-procurement gauntlet.
PillarPoint is built for seven sectors that look a lot alike across the PNW. If yours isn't on this list, talk to us anyway. Odds are we've still got something useful to say.
PillarPoint is the advisory side of the practice. The product side ships, runs, and is ready to support your business.
A CMS plugin that flags risky AI-generated content, tracks provenance, and helps editorial teams keep their standards intact as AI tools enter the workflow. Plans start at $299 / month.
Patrick Teglia. Writing software professionally since 1989. Seven years on backend at Smartsheet, with earlier work for the USDA Forest Service, NBCUniversal, and the Gates Foundation. Security+ certified. Founder of PillarShield. Lives in Richland, runs his own AI infrastructure on dedicated hardware, and shows up to every meeting personally.
No account managers. No "we'll loop in our team." When you hire PillarPoint, you hire Patrick.
Short essays on what's actually working (and what isn't) for businesses adopting AI in the Pacific Northwest.
A local consultant's honest log of building a multi-tool framework and nine working products by directing AI to write the code.
Where local AI on your own hardware beats cloud, where cloud still wins, and how to decide which workflows belong where.
Ninety minutes, no obligation, no pitch. If you want to keep working together after, we'll talk about that. If not, you walk away with three concrete moves.