Services

What we actually do.
Three doorways into the same work.

Hudson Sky helps businesses adopt modern technology — especially AI — without the risks. The work shows up under different headings depending on what's pressuring you: a regulator, a customer audit, an AI tool that arrived without a policy, an operator's hour stuck on broken tech. Pick the doorway that fits where you actually are. Or talk to a strategist and we'll figure it out together.

Track 01Regulated industries
Track 02Operators & SMBs
Track 03AI adoption
The three tracks

Pick the doorway that matches the pressure.

The work is mostly the same regardless of door — security, AI governance, technology that works. The framing changes depending on whether your audience is a regulator, a customer, or your own team trying to get through the day.

01
REGULATED

Industries.

When a regulator, an auditor, or a contracting officer is the audience.

Defense contractors under CMMC. Healthcare under HIPAA. Professional services under SOC 2 and the questionnaire your biggest client just sent. Financial services under SEC, FINRA, GLBA, and 23 NYCRR 500. Manufacturers under customer audits and OT/IT pressure. Different vocabularies, the same underlying work — done so it holds up in front of someone whose job is to find the gaps.

Defense Contractors Healthcare Professional Services Financial Services Manufacturing
Find your industry
02
CROSS-INDUSTRY

Operators.

When the issue is the technology in front of you, not the regulator behind it.

For SMBs and operators where no acronym fits but the work still matters — chambers of commerce, family businesses, lakefront restaurants, dealerships, distributors, real estate firms, schools, nonprofits. We do the work that protects the business and makes the technology serve the team. Not the other way around.

Cybersecurity & threat defense IT operations & helpdesk Cloud architecture Vendor & tech consolidation
Read the Operators page
03
CROSS-TRACK

AI Adoption.

When AI is showing up faster than your team can govern it.

Three steps that work for anyone — regulated or not. Start with the AI Readiness Scorecard (90 seconds, free, no email gate). Walk through the AI Governance Quick Start checklist (16 minutes, free, ungated). When the self-serve work isn't enough, the AI Exposure Report is the 5-day fixed-fee diagnostic that produces the artifact your leadership team can actually use.

AI Readiness Scorecard AI Governance Quick Start AI Exposure Report Ongoing AI governance
Take the Scorecard
What we actually do

Six service categories that span all three tracks.

Whether you came in through Industries, Operators, or AI Adoption, the underlying capabilities draw from the same set. The framing is the part that changes by audience — the work, mostly, doesn't.

Information security & compliance.

SOC 2, HIPAA, CMMC, GLBA, FTC Safeguards, 23 NYCRR 500. WISPs, SSPs, Risk Analyses, POA&Ms. The artifacts a regulator or customer audit expects to see — written for your environment, defensible under scrutiny, and operating as a real program rather than a folder you opened twice last year.

AI governance & adoption.

From the visibility inventory ("what AI is actually being used here") through written policy, vendor contract review, customer-facing AI scrutiny, and the operating cadence that keeps it all current. Pairs cleanly with the AI Readiness Scorecard, the Quick Start checklist, and the Exposure Report.

Cybersecurity & threat defense.

MFA across every credential surface. EDR/XDR on every endpoint. Email security and phishing defense. Vulnerability management with results that drive action. SIEM where it earns its cost. Network segmentation including OT where it applies. The defenses that actually move the dial — not the ones that look good in a security vendor's pitch deck.

Cloud architecture & operations.

Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Azure, AWS — set up the way they should have been the first time. Identity federation. Conditional access. Backup that's been tested restoring. Cost optimization that doesn't sacrifice posture. Tenant hygiene for organizations that grew faster than their cloud footprint did.

Incident response & recovery.

Pre-built runbooks. Immutable backups your team has actually tested restoring. Tabletop exercises. The 3 AM call that gets answered. Notification clocks for SEC (4 days), NYDFS (72 hours), state AGs, and the customers and partners who need to hear it from you before they hear it elsewhere. We've made these calls.

Vendor & supply chain risk.

Real inventories of who's connected to your data and your network. AI vendors included. Contract review that catches what most form contracts hide. Annual diligence that's actually performed, not pencilwhipped. Customer audit response built on top so the next questionnaire is an hour, not a week.

How we work

Three things you won't get from a generic vendor.

01

Senior practitioners doing the work, not handing it to juniors.

The person who scopes the engagement is the person doing the work. Most firms structure differently — partner sells, associate delivers, junior writes the artifacts. We don't, because the artifacts are where the value lives. If a junior could write your SSP or your risk analysis, the assessment that follows would already be smoother than ours.

02

Fixed-fee diagnostic upfront so you can see how we work before signing a longer engagement.

The AI Exposure Report is the most concrete example — a 5-day fixed-fee engagement that produces a real artifact, with a refund guarantee if the deliverables aren't useful. We use the same shape for compliance gap assessments, customer audit prep, and incident-readiness diagnostics. Letting you read our work before committing is how trust builds — not how we scare it off.

03

We treat your regulators, customers, and auditors as the audience — not just the budget.

An assessment isn't won by writing it well; it's won by writing it for someone whose job is to find the gaps. The same goes for a customer questionnaire, an OCR inquiry, an SEC exam letter, or a procurement audit. We build the artifacts and the program with that audience in mind from the start — which is why ours hold up when those audiences eventually show up.

Common questions

The questions we get most often.

Bring sharper questions to the strategy call and we'll go further. These are the starters.

What's the difference between Industries and Operators?+
Industries is for companies where a regulator, an auditor, or a customer audit is the primary pressure — defense subs under CMMC, healthcare under HIPAA, professional services under SOC 2, financial services under SEC/FINRA/NYDFS, manufacturers facing customer questionnaires. Operators is for companies where the pressure is the technology itself — cybersecurity, IT operations, AI showing up unguarded — without an acronym driving the timeline. The work overlaps. The framing differs. Use whichever doorway matches the conversation you're already having internally.
Are you an MSP?+
Not in the way the term is usually used. We do work that an MSP would do — security operations, IT support, cloud administration — but we're built around the security, AI, and compliance work first, with operations supporting that. The ratio is the opposite of a typical MSP. If you're looking for someone to manage helpdesk tickets and keep the printers running, there are firms that do that better and cheaper. If you're looking for someone to take responsibility for the whole technology surface — including the parts that show up under audit — we do that.
How do you price?+
Three patterns. Fixed-fee diagnostics for scoped engagements (Exposure Report, gap assessments, customer audit prep) — typically $15-50k depending on scope. Project work for build-outs (SSP development, SOC 2 readiness, OT segmentation) — quoted on the readiness call once we've seen the environment. Ongoing programs (compliance maintenance, IR retainer, AI governance) — typically $25-150k/year for SMB, scoped to the firm and its real exposure. We quote on the call so you have real numbers before committing to anything.
Do you work outside Chicago?+
Yes. We're Chicago-based and most of our clients are in the Midwest, but the work is mostly remote — risk analyses, policy development, AI governance, vendor reviews, incident response don't require us to be onsite for the work itself. Where onsite presence matters (initial scoping, OT environment assessments, executive briefings), we travel. About a third of our active engagements are outside Illinois.
How quickly can you start?+
For a strategy call, this week or next. For a fixed-fee diagnostic like the Exposure Report, typically two to three weeks from yes-let's-do-it to kickoff. For a longer engagement, four to six weeks is realistic — including the contract phase, scoping, and the team's onboarding to your environment. If you have a firm deadline (a regulator, a customer audit, an exam letter), tell us on the call and we'll either confirm we can hit it or tell you straight that we can't.
What if we already have an MSP or an IT team?+
Good. We work alongside both. The most common pattern is your existing MSP or in-house IT keeps doing what they do well — operational support, helpdesk, infrastructure — and we handle the security and compliance and AI governance work that sits on top. We've collaborated with plenty of MSPs and we know how to do it without stepping on toes. If your current vendor isn't comfortable with the arrangement, that's worth a separate conversation.