AI automation · Urbandale, Iowa

I build AI that does the work nobody has time for.

MEAT AI is a one-person shop in Urbandale. I put AI into the way your business already runs — answering the phone, sorting the inbox, pulling up records, handling the jobs that eat a morning — on hardware you own, or in a cloud account with your name on it. Not a subscription to somebody else's product.

Example day Tue
Work that used to need a person
A composite of jobs I've automated, on one ordinary Tuesday.
6:04 AM41 overnight emails sorted. Nine need you. Drafts are written and waiting.
11:20 AMA customer texts asking about hours. Answered in nine seconds, from wording you approved.
2:47 PMTwelve invoices read. Numbers land in the sheet instead of being typed twice.
9:31 PMThe phone rings after close. The question gets answered, the lead is in your queue by morning.
Nothing above sends itself. The system drafts, answers from what you wrote, and waits for you on anything it hasn't been given words for.
Why it's worth doing

Three things change in the first month.

After hours
The calls and texts that used to hit voicemail get an actual answer. Most people hire whoever gets back to them first — that's usually the whole contest.
Before you're up
The inbox is already sorted and the replies are already drafted. You spend the morning deciding, not reading.
$0 per message
No per-token bill that grows with your business. A machine you buy once, plus the electricity to run it.
What I automate

Start with one job. Add the next when the first one's earning.

You don't buy a platform and hope it fits. We find the task that costs you the most time or the most leads, automate that one, and prove it works on your real data before anything else gets built.

01 · Phone & text

A line that answers when you can't

Callers and texters get a real answer instead of a voicemail beep — pulled from a library of responses you wrote and approved. Anything it hasn't been given words for, it captures and hands to you with the question attached.

Running today See it working →
02 · Email

An inbox that sorts itself

It reads what came in overnight, sorts and prioritizes it, and drafts replies in the way you actually write — learned from the edits you make, not from a model trained on your customers. You read and send. Nothing goes out on its own.

Running today
03 · Records

One place to ask about a customer

Built on the invoicing and record-keeping tools you already pay for. Ask in plain English and get what's actually in your files — who they are, what they bought, when they were last in. No new database to maintain and no retyping.

04 · Paperwork

Documents read, not retyped

Invoices, packing slips, work orders and forms, read off the page and into wherever the numbers are supposed to go. The jobs that are too small to hire for and too slow to keep doing by hand.

05 · Workflows

The thing somebody rebuilds every Monday

The weekly report. The follow-up that never gets sent. The spreadsheet three people update by hand. If a job has steps and somebody's doing it the same way every week, it can usually stop being a job.

06 · The machine

Hardware specced, built, installed

A machine sized for what you're actually asking it to do, set up in your building and handed over working. If local doesn't fit your situation, I'll set up a cloud account in your name instead — your keys, your bill, your control.

Not every job needs an AI build. I also do security testing, firewall and network builds, private on-site storage and backup, custom Google app builds, and websites. All of it is priced on the cost page →

Proof, not a pitch

I didn't read about this. I built it, and it answers my phone.

Dory is everything above, assembled into one system and pointed at my own business first. It has been answering a real phone line, on real hardware, since this summer. Every mistake it could make, it made on me before it went anywhere near a customer.

  • It answers the phone. A caller asks a question, the system works out what they're asking, and plays back an answer a person wrote and approved. It never improvises a sentence to a customer.
  • It answers texts. Same library, same rules, on a line that does both calling and texting.
  • It triages email. Sorting, prioritizing and drafting on live mail — the piece that's been running the longest.
  • It knows when to stop. No matching answer means it takes a message and tells me, rather than guessing. That's a design choice enforced in the machine, not a rule written in a manual.
  • There's a console. One screen for approving drafts, writing new answers, listening to a recording before it goes live, and seeing what the system did while you weren't looking.
Try it yourself

Call it and ask it something.

It's a working line, not a video of one. Ask what it runs on, how it works, or when I'm available.

(515) 216-6798
  1. Call or text the number.
  2. Listen to the recording notice.
  3. Say "demo" when it asks which assistant you want.
  4. Then just ask it something.

Say anything else — or nothing — and you get the everyday line instead, which only ever plays answers I've approved. Both are real. Calls may be recorded; the notice tells you before anything is transcribed.

See how the whole thing works →

How it goes

Priced by stage, so you can stop after any of them.

You're never committing to a big build on a promise. Each stage ends with something you can look at and judge.

00

Reach out

Tell me what's eating your week. If AI isn't the answer, I'll say so.

Free
01

Discovery

I look at where your information actually lives and map what's possible, then hand you a plain findings summary.

~$400 avg
02

Pilot

Built for real on one part of your business, using your actual data, and you watch it work.

$3,000 + hardware
03

Deploy

Installed across the business, connected to your records and your line, confirmed with your team.

~$300 avg
04

Support

Keep it running. Pick a level of ongoing care, or none, and change it whenever.

From $0/mo

See the full pricing & run the numbers →

Why it's safe to say yes

Built to earn trust with your customers' information.

Plenty of business owners are uneasy handing customer records to a cloud AI provider they've never met. That instinct is correct — so here's exactly what happens to it.

01Processed on site, never in a data farm

The reading, sorting and drafting all happen on a machine on your premises — not in someone's cloud, and not on ours. No customer data is sent to any AI company, including me. Your email still runs through your mail provider and your calls still cross a phone carrier, the same as they do today. What changes is that nothing new leaves.

02Your people stay in charge

The system suggests; your team decides. Nobody's replaced, and nothing goes out automatically. It's a smarter assistant for the people you already trust.

03It won't make things up

It only tells your team what's actually in your records, and only says to a customer what a person already wrote down. If it doesn't know something, it stays quiet and asks you. Right or silent, never confidently wrong.

04Kept as long as your policy says, then erased

Mine runs at 30 days: message text and call transcripts are erased — not archived, overwritten. What's left is a tally of how many calls came in and what they were about. No names, no numbers, no message content. Your window is set to whatever your industry or your own rules require, agreed before anything is installed.

Why owning it beats renting it →

Who this is for

Local businesses with repeat customers and a phone that rings.

Regional companies backed by private equity are buying up shops across the metro and backing them with call centers an independent can't match. Most people hire whoever gets back to them first. This is how the smaller shop wins that moment — without hiring a receptionist or renting software that gets more expensive every year.

Auto dealers Repair shops HVAC & plumbing Electrical Insurance agencies Retail counters Home services Contractors Clinics & practices
Common questions

The things people ask on the first call.

Does AI have to run in the cloud?

No. The models I build with run on a machine in your building — a mini PC with a graphics card, roughly the size of a shoebox. It needs no internet connection and no outside API to answer a question. I've run one from a truck on a phone hotspot and I've run one with no connection at all.

Cloud still makes sense for some jobs, and if that's your situation I'll set it up in an account with your name on it rather than reselling you mine.

Can AI actually answer my business phone?

Yes, and you can hear it do it — call (515) 216-6798 and say "demo" after the notice. The important part is how it answers: from a library of responses a person wrote and approved, not sentences a model made up on the spot. When a caller asks something the library doesn't cover, it takes a message and flags it, then drafts a suggested answer for you to approve so the library grows.

What does a project cost?

Discovery runs about $400, a Pilot is $3,000 plus hardware, and hardware for a typical build lands around $1,700. Support starts at $0 a month. Every stage is listed on the cost page, along with a calculator that compares owning a machine against renting cloud AI at your volume.

Will it send something to a customer without me seeing it?

Not unless you turn that on deliberately, channel by channel. The default is that everything is drafted and waits for a person. On the phone line, the system can only play back recordings that were written and approved by a human — there is no code path that ends in it inventing a sentence for a caller.

Do you work with businesses outside Des Moines?

I'm based in Urbandale and work across the Des Moines metro — Clive, Waukee, Ankeny, West Des Moines, Johnston, Grimes and the rest of Central Iowa — where I can be on site the same day. Remote work outside that area is possible depending on the project; ask.

What happens to my customers' data?

It's processed on your machine, and no customer data is sent to any AI company, including me. Your email still crosses your mail provider and your calls still cross a phone carrier — that's true today and it stays true. What changes is that nothing new leaves. Message text and transcripts are erased on the schedule your policy requires; what survives is a de-identified tally.

I'm not technical. Is this going to become my problem?

The whole thing is one screen: approve a draft, write a new answer, see what happened while you were closed. You don't administer a server. If something needs attention it tells you, and depending on your support tier I either come look at it or push the fix myself.

Tell me what's eating your week.

A conversation costs nothing and there's no pitch at the end of it. If AI isn't the right answer for your situation, I'll tell you that instead.

Start a discovery call
(515) 216-6798  ·  letsmeat@meataillc.com
Call it, text it, or email — I answer the same day.