Eliza: AI-native operations for an AI consulting firm

About Eliza

Eliza is one of the fastest-growing AI consulting firms in the US and an OpenAI services partner, helping enterprises integrate and adopt AI. The firm grew from its founding team to 85 people in 12 months. Its leadership has scaled multiple consulting firms to hundreds of employees before, so they know firsthand what breaks when a services organization grows on spreadsheets and legacy PSA tools.

Building on a Modern PSA Early

Most firms wait until the cracks show before they replace the spreadsheet. Eliza did the opposite. Having lived through what happens when operations outgrow their tooling, the team put a platform of record in place early, during the stretch that took them from the founding team to 85 people in a year.

"I met Lauri in Austin and knew this was the right choice," said Stephen Garden, CEO of Eliza. "We've been using many legacy PSA tools, and Operating does what they do but simpler."

{{quote_component}}

Why Eliza Chose Operating

As an OpenAI services partner, Eliza spends its days helping enterprises adopt AI, so it evaluates its own tools the way it advises clients: with a practitioner's eye on where the work is heading. Operating's API-first architecture and native support for AI agent workflows fit both how Eliza already operates and where the industry is going. This wasn't a tool bought to solve today's problem. It was a bet on the operating model the firm is building toward.

Resourcing and Time Tracking in One Place

Eliza runs its day-to-day delivery on Operating. Resourcing and time tracking live in one system, so the team has a single, current view of who is staffed where, who is on the bench, and how time is being spent across engagements. For a firm hiring at this pace, that single source of truth is the difference between staffing decisions made on real data and ones made on whichever spreadsheet was updated last.

Wiring AI Agents into Operations

This is where Operating fits an AI-native firm most closely. Operating exposes its data through an MCP server and a REST API, which means Eliza's AI agents can read and write operational data directly. Staffing, availability, and project data aren't locked inside a dashboard a person has to open. They're live and queryable, so the same AI tooling Eliza builds its client work on can also reason over the firm's own operations. Asking who is free next week, or which projects are running over, becomes a question an agent can answer against real-time data rather than a report someone has to assemble.

"We're growing fast and we need one place for all our delivery data. Operating gives us that, plus it plugs straight into our HubSpot CRM and our AI agents can read and write to it through the MCP server. That's what sold us," said Sophia Ryterband, Strategy and Operations Lead at Eliza.

Connected to HubSpot

Operating plugs straight into Eliza's HubSpot CRM, so pipeline and deal data flows into delivery planning without re-entry. Sales and operations work from the same picture, and the team can staff against signed and upcoming work as it comes through, rather than reconciling two systems by hand.

Built to Scale

Eliza put a modern PSA platform in place before it needed one, which is the point. Staffing and forecasting are usually the first things to buckle when a team outgrows spreadsheets, and Eliza has that foundation in place while it's still growing fast. With resourcing, time tracking, HubSpot, and its AI agents all connected through one system, the setup that runs the firm today is built to hold as it keeps scaling.

For a firm whose entire model is AI-first, running operations on a platform that treats AI agents and live data as first-class isn't a nice-to-have. It's the same bet Eliza is making for its clients, made on its own business.