Our Story

We Govern AI in Your Engineering Org - Then Build the Agents That Replace Your Manual Work

Two capabilities, one accountable partner. A Fractional AI Officer embedded in 72 hours to govern AI-generated code - then custom agents deployed for your highest-ROI workflows. Built for enterprise teams across 12 industries.

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12
Industry Verticals
60+
Agent Specialities
72h
Governance Embedded
4
Products
Why We Started

The Gap No One Was Filling

We watched technical teams adopt AI coding tools faster than any governance layer could keep up. Code was shipping from models that no one had reviewed. AI-suggested packages were going into production without security checks. When compliance officers asked for audit trails, nobody knew how to generate them. There was no named owner for the AI output.

The governance gap came first. Which agent, which model, how to deploy — those questions came second. What every technical team actually lacked was someone accountable for what the AI built. That's the Fractional AI Officer: one named governance specialist, embedded in your engineering org, who owns the AI output and can defend it to your board, your auditor, and your regulator.

Once governance is in place, the rest follows naturally. Purpose-built agents, domain-trained for your vertical, deployed in days rather than quarters. But governance comes first — it's the only order that doesn't end in a compliance incident.

Generic AI tools
Powerful but context-blind. Requires months of prompting and domain knowledge transfer that most teams don't have the bandwidth for.
Custom ML development
Full control but 6–18 month timelines, significant budgets, and a dependency on an engineering team to maintain it indefinitely.
Industry-agnostic SaaS
Fast to set up, but built for the median customer, not for your specific workflows, terminology, or compliance requirements.
Upcore — industry-specific agents
Governed from Day 1. Deployed in days. Built for your vertical, your workflows, and your compliance requirements.
What We Built

Four Products. One Philosophy.

Govern AI in your engineering org, then build agents that replace your most expensive manual work - all from one accountable partner.

Flagship · FAO
AI Engineering Governance
Your Fractional AI Officer embedded in 72 hours. Governs AI-generated code - budget, security, and compliance - before it becomes a liability.
Forge
SDLC Agent
End-to-end software delivery without a dev team. You describe, Forge builds, you approve, it ships.
Studio
Agent Builder
60+ agent specialities across 12 industries. Describe a workflow in plain English — deployed in 72 hours.
AI Workforce
Industry Workforces
A coordinated team of specialised agents — each trained for your vertical, working 24/7 without downtime.
What We Believe

The Convictions We Build By

01
Industry context is the moat, not model size.
A generic AI that needs you to explain what "CAPA" or "Days Past Due schedules" means is not a production tool — it's a prototype. Industry-specific agents already know your terminology, your edge cases, and your regulatory environment. That depth of context is what separates useful AI from impressive demos.
02
Control builds trust. Trust enables scale.
Every Upcore agent operates within guardrails you define. Nothing executes at scale without your approval where it matters. We believe the organisations that will get the most from AI aren't those who deploy the most autonomously — they're the ones who deploy with the most intentional oversight. Trust is not an obstacle to AI adoption; it's the prerequisite for it.
03
Speed to deploy is a competitive advantage.
The window between identifying an operational problem and having an AI solution for it should be measured in days, not quarters. Every month an operator waits for a custom build, a competitor is moving. We believe deployment speed is not just a technical property — it's a strategic one. 72 hours is not a marketing claim; it's an architecture decision. For regulated enterprise clients with procurement cycles, the 72 hours runs from contract execution — not the first call.
04
Automation should amplify people, not erase them.
The best AI implementations we've seen don't eliminate teams — they make teams dramatically more effective. Agents handle the repetitive, high-volume, time-sensitive work. Humans handle judgment, relationships, and exceptions. This division of labour isn't a compromise — it's the only model that produces reliable outcomes in complex operational environments.
How We Work

From First Conversation to Live Agent

Every engagement follows the same four-step process — designed to be fast, transparent, and low-risk for you.

01
Discovery & Assessment
A 45-minute session where we map your top 3 agent opportunities, estimate ROI, and give you a written plan. No pitch. No pressure. Just clarity.
45 Minutes
02
Build & Configure
We build your first agent — trained on your workflows, connected to your systems, configured with your guardrails and escalation paths.
48–72 Hours
03
Review & Deploy
You review exactly how the agent will behave. Nothing goes live without your explicit sign-off. Then it's deployed to your chosen channels.
Your Approval
04
Tune & Scale
We monitor performance, tune based on real interactions, and help you scale from one agent to a full AI workforce as confidence grows.
Ongoing
Industries We Serve
The Team

Who You're Actually Working With

Before you embed a governance specialist in your engineering org, you should know who they are. Here's the team behind every engagement.

GP
Gaurav Passi
Co-Founder & CEO
Built Upcore after seeing first-hand how ungoverned AI code created compounding risk in financial services and SaaS engineering orgs. Gaurav leads client engagements, FAO selection, and delivery quality. Every governance review goes through him before it reaches your team.
👥
The FAO Specialists
AI Governance Delivery
Every Fractional AI Officer embedded at a client is an AI engineering governance specialist — typically 8+ years across SDLC governance, AI tool deployment, and regulatory frameworks (EU AI Act, HIPAA, SOX, ISO 27001). You meet your named FAO before you sign anything. Your engagement's specialist is confirmed in the proposal, not after you've committed.
Engineering-Native FAO
8+ yrs as a senior engineer. Governs AI at the PR level — reviews Copilot output, catches hallucinated packages, enforces prompt standards in CI. Common verticals: SaaS, fintech.
Compliance-Led FAO
GRC and regulatory advisory background. Specialises in HIPAA, SOX, and EU AI Act documentation — turns AI risk into board-ready audit trail. Common verticals: healthcare, public company, financial services.
Security-First FAO
AppSec and AI red-teaming background. Focused on supply chain risk, prompt injection safeguards, and LLM threat modelling. Common verticals: enterprise IT, defence-adjacent, regulated SaaS.
🛠
The FDE Engineers
Forward Deployed Engineering
Every Studio agent is built and shipped by a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) — embedded directly in your workflow, integrating against your real CRM, ERP, and internal systems. The same role OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks use to get AI into production. Your FDE stays after launch to maintain and expand what they build — not a project-and-vanish agency engagement.
Work With Us

Describe Your Biggest
Operational Problem.

We'll tell you whether an agent can solve it, and exactly how, in a free 45-minute session.

Book a Governance Review → Just Say Hello