Private AI · AI Search · Dallas and Fort Worth

Your staff already use AI. Your client files may be going with them.

Forte builds private AI systems that run on hardware you own, over documents that never leave your office. For firms that cannot afford to be careless with what they hold.

Serving professional practices and B2B firms across DFW.

The difference that matters

Where your client files actually go

Both setups answer the same question just as well. Only one of them sends privileged material across a boundary you do not control.

CLOUD AI TOOL Third-party AI service Retained · Out of your control THE INTERNET YOUR OFFICE Client files Contracts · Records · Notes uploaded One arrow crosses the line. Every document pasted in leaves the building and is held by someone else. PRIVATE AI, BUILT BY FORTE NOTHING LEAVES THE INTERNET YOUR OFFICE Client files Unchanged, in place AI model On your hardware queried No arrow crosses the line. The model comes to the documents, so there is nothing to disclose, subpoena or leak.
The entire difference is one arrow. In a cloud tool, the documents travel to the model and are held by a third party. In a private deployment, the model sits beside the documents and the work happens where the files already live.

Flagship engagement

Private AI Deployment

A working AI system your team can use on privileged material, running on hardware you own, in six weeks.

Who this is for

Firms of five to fifty people who handle material they are not permitted to be casual with. Law practices, accounting firms, medical and dental groups, title and insurance agencies, financial advisors. If a confidentiality obligation or a client contract makes a third-party AI tool a problem, this is the version you can actually use.

Why firms move

  • Confidentiality. Privileged material cannot be handed to a third party. For many practices that is not a preference, it is an obligation with consequences attached.
  • Cost. Scattered AI subscriptions across a small firm now run into thousands of dollars a month. A one-time build against owned hardware replaces recurring spend and typically pays for itself inside a year.
  • Shadow usage. Staff are using AI whether it is sanctioned or not. Giving them a private option is the only approach that actually changes behavior.

What gets built

Layer one

Hardened stack

Containerized inference running non-root with dropped privileges, resource limits and health monitoring. Locked down before it is ever switched on.

Layer two

Your document index

A private index over your own files, so answers come from your contracts and your records rather than from the open internet.

Layer three

Private remote access

Staff reach it from home or from court over an encrypted private network, with no port exposed to the public internet.

Layer four

Tested recovery

Scheduled backups that we restore and time, not just configure. Version pinning with a documented rollback path.

Layer five

People and policy

Staff training and a written acceptable use policy, which is the part that actually stops client data going into free tools.

Layer six

The runbook

Written so your office manager can follow it, not so another engineer can. It is the deliverable that outlives the engagement.

Where every engagement starts

Data Readiness Assessment

Two weeks. A written answer to whether your firm could recover its files tomorrow, and whether it could safely put AI to work on its own client material.

Two questions worth answering

  • When did someone last actually restore a file from your backup, rather than check that the backup ran?
  • Do you know where your staff are currently pasting client information when they use AI tools?

Most firms cannot answer either one with confidence. Both are knowable in two weeks, and both are questions your own clients are beginning to ask you.

What you receive

  • A real restore test. We do not read your backup dashboard. We select a live file set, restore it to clean hardware, and time the whole recovery. You get the result either way.
  • Data inventory. Every place client information actually lives, including the personal drives nobody mentions in the first meeting.
  • A written recovery runbook your office manager could follow while you are away.
  • Access map. Who can reach what, which logins still belong to people who left, and where credentials are shared.
  • AI readiness verdict. A straight yes, not yet, or no, with the specific gaps that would have to close first.

The original practice

AI Search Visibility

Buyers now ask an AI assistant before they ask a search engine. We make sure the answer it gives includes you, and that what it says is right.

Three layers, one outcome

  • SEO is the foundation. Without it nothing else has anything to stand on.
  • AEO is the tactical layer. Answer Engine Optimization shapes how assistants answer the questions your buyers actually ask.
  • GEO is the strategic layer. Generative Engine Optimization decides whether you are part of the answer at all across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity.

We measure the work in Share of Answer, the proportion of relevant AI responses in your category that mention you. Everything we publish meets the 4Cs standard: comprehensive, clear, current and credible.

Visibility Ignition Sprint

A flat-fee thirty day program for local service businesses. HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing and landscaping firms who want to be the name an assistant gives when someone in their service area asks. Monthly maintenance available once the sprint completes.

Specialty offering

Event Lead Capture

Most exhibitors spend twenty five thousand on a booth, collect ninety badge scans, and let them sit in a spreadsheet for two weeks. We run the booth as a lead program instead.

Before the show

Targeted outreach

A named account list built from the exhibitor and attendee rosters, with a sequence driving the ones that matter to your booth at a set time.

On the floor

A reason to stop

A branded ninety second challenge that captures every lead at check in, before they play, with a qualifying answer and a performance score attached.

Within 48 hours

Segmented follow up

Outreach written against how each person actually performed, sent while they still remember the conversation rather than two weeks later.

After

Cost per lead

Reporting against your own baseline, in the number your field marketing team is measured on.

Why one firm does all of this

There are only two AI questions a business has to get right.

Question one · outward

How AI sees your business

When a buyer asks an assistant who to call, something gets said about your category and it either includes you or it does not. That answer is now the first impression, and it is shapeable.

Question two · inward

How your business uses AI

Your team will use these tools regardless. Whether that becomes an advantage or a disclosure problem depends entirely on where the data sits while the work happens.

Most firms send those two questions to two different vendors who never speak. We treat them as the same problem, because the answer to both is the same: be deliberate about AI before it is deliberate about you.

Start a conversation

Begin with a readiness assessment

Two weeks, a flat fee, and a written answer. If your firm is in good shape we will tell you that, and you will still have the runbook.

Prefer to start smaller? A free AI visibility audit shows how assistants currently describe your business, and takes nothing but your website address.