Key Takeaways
Varyence funds each AI implementation and only starts billing clients once the agents prove they save real hours.
Varyence's results-based model reverses the traditional approach, where clients typically pay upfront regardless of the outcome.
Varyence combines its own AI platform, hands-on deployment, and a results-based partnership, and bills only once the work delivers.
Jason Hishmeh’s background spanning finance and technology shapes how Varyence identifies where AI can genuinely create value for a company.
Jason Hishmeh co-founded Varyence, a global technology firm in New York built around an unusual promise for businesses. Varyence says its AI Ops model is structured so that clients begin paying for implementations once agreed performance or time-saving outcomes have been demonstrated.
Long before Hishmeh cofounded this company, he was working in the finance department of a Fortune 500 company, moving through the same checklists and month-end closes, month after month. Nobody in the department even had a computer at the time. His arrived because he asked for one.
"I loved the ability to automate financial accounting activities," said Hishmeh. He found the hours passed quickly when he was working with technology.
That habit of raising his hand has carried Hishmeh from a Fortune 500 finance desk to building Varyence, and to a career spanning technology leadership, entrepreneurship, investing, and writing. It also explains why his newest launch takes direct aim at one of the biggest problems in modern business.
Learning Business From the Inside
Early in his career as a corporate accountant, his employer began rolling out SAP, a widely used enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and Hishmeh volunteered to join the project. The decision sent him across the United States installing ERP software at company locations nationwide. ERP systems connect the core functions of a business, from finance to inventory, and implementing them taught him how large organizations run.
The assignment turned into a full career. Hishmeh went on to lead infrastructure teams, then application development teams, then cybersecurity teams, adding a layer of expertise each time. Along the way, he held senior technology roles at Fortune 500 companies such as S&P Global, Allstate, and State Farm. His accounting background stayed with him, and the combination gave him a background spanning both finance and technology.
For over a decade, he worked in the Financial District in Manhattan, a period he counts among his favorites. Eventually a bigger ambition pulled him away from corporate life and toward building companies of his own.
Betting on Founders
Hishmeh is a co-founder and partner at Varyence, where he serves as chief technology officer and chief information security officer, the executive responsible for protecting a company's systems and data. He also co-founded Equet, which backs early-stage founders with its own capital, executive leadership, and technical depth to help them launch and scale. Equet focuses on pre-revenue AI and deep tech startups across the United States, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, and the Nordic countries.
In late 2024, he co-authored The 6 Startup Stages, a book of practical playbooks for founders that reached number one on Amazon's new releases list in the venture capital category within its first month. His commentary now appears regularly in the press, with more than 150 media placements since late 2024 in outlets including Yahoo Finance, Nasdaq, Benzinga, GoBankingRates, and Business.com. A New Yorker by origin, Hishmeh splits his time among the United States, London, and continental Europe.
Charging Only When It Works
In August 2026, Varyence launched AI Ops, a fully managed service that places AI agents inside the software a business already uses, handling repetitive work across finance, sales, human resources, operations, engineering, and marketing. Varyence built the technology behind AI Ops itself, and clients step in only when a decision truly needs a person.
What sets the offer apart is how clients pay for it. A typical technology consultancy charges its full fee upfront, whether or not the resulting system ever delivers value. Traditional technology consulting and SaaS models commonly involve upfront, milestone-based or recurring fees that are not always directly tied to measured business outcomes.Varyence instead funds the implementation and customization and covers the cost of running each AI agent until it proves it saves real hours. Under this model, Varyence assumes more of the initial implementation cost than is typical in conventional consulting or subscription arrangements.
“We bring together the AI platform, the team that deploys it, and a partnership where we only charge once it works,” said Hishmeh. “That combination is what actually changes how a company operates.”
The model answers a gap Hishmeh has watched widen for years. In its 2025 State of AI survey, McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm, found that 88% of organizations now use AI regularly, yet only 6% qualify as "high performers," deriving more than 5% of their earnings from it. Almost every business owns the tools, and very few see the payoff.
Hishmeh points to the mistakes that keep businesses stuck in that gap. Many never map their own processes well enough to improve them before adding new technology. Others automate a broken workflow, which only speeds up bad outcomes. Still others neglect the people affected by the change, leaving employees resistant or disengaged. AI Ops was built to address each of these, starting with a map of how work gets done, then placing agents within familiar tools so adoption feels natural.
With decades of enterprise experience behind him, Hishmeh keeps following the instinct that first surfaced at that accounting desk. Find the work that creates real value, then build a business that is willing to be paid only after it delivers that value.
For more information about AI Ops by Varyence, visit https://ai.varyence.com/
About Varyence
Varyence is a global technology firm that helps established companies put AI to work inside the tools they already use. Its AI Ops service brings together Varyence's own AI platform, the team that deploys it, and a results-based partnership, with governance, security, and human oversight built in, and client payments begin once agreed performance criteria have been met. Varyence has delivered more than 150 projects globally since 2012 and has been a Microsoft Partner since 2023. Learn more at https://ai.varyence.com/.