Where we are
Toronto, Ontario. In person across the GTA — Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham, Scarborough, Hamilton — and remote with clients across Canada and the United States.
About
A small team. Toronto. Real software.
Built by AI is a small team led by Alex Saringer. Small enough that you talk to the people building your project, not an account manager — and small enough that we are still here when you need it changed a year later.
Alex Saringer
Founder · Toronto, Ontario
I started Built by AI to build software for people and businesses that most development shops won't take seriously. Recently that has meant launching Reply Required, a product that helps condo residents get an actual answer out of their property manager; building the patient intake, communications and billing system that a US medical equipment distributor runs on; building an audited ISO 13485 quality system for a medical device manufacturer, with an AI agent that does the quality work rather than merely recording it; replacing a staffed call centre with an AI one; and putting up small, fast websites for people who were told they were not worth a developer’s time.
I started using ChatGPT the day it came out, and have worked with just about every AI tool that has shipped since. At first that was selfish — it made me faster and sharper at my own job. Somewhere along the way it became more interesting to point it at other people's businesses instead, which is harder, and considerably more satisfying.
That spread is deliberate. A team that can design a billing pipeline should also be willing to build you a one-page site, and charge accordingly. Most of the industry has decided otherwise, which is the gap we exist to fill.
I lead every project and I am on the first call. A small group of developers I have shipped with before works alongside me on the build. Nobody gets handed off to an account manager, and there is no anonymous subcontractor you were not told about.
Why staying small is the feature
An agency carries a sales team, account managers and a bench, all of which have to be paid every month. That becomes a minimum project size, which is why your small job either gets politely declined or padded until it covers the overhead.
We carry none of that. A two-day job can be a two-day job. Nothing gets inflated to keep anyone busy, and there is no layer of people between you and whoever actually understands your project.
The name is literal
We build with AI, heavily, as part of how the work gets done — not as a marketing angle. It's why the timelines and prices look the way they do, and why a small project is worth our time at all.
It is not why the work is good. A human still designs the system, reviews every line that ships, and is on the hook when it breaks. AI makes a competent developer considerably faster. It does not make an absent one accountable.
How we think
Five things we're opinionated about.
The workflow matters more than the technology
Most "AI projects" that fail were process problems wearing a technology costume. We spend the first conversations on how work actually moves through your business, because automating a broken process just breaks it faster and more expensively.
Boring technology, deliberately
We pick tools with large hiring pools and long track records. If we get hit by a bus, you should be able to hire someone in Toronto next week who understands your codebase on day one. Novelty is a cost you pay later.
A human signs off on anything that matters
Language models are excellent at first drafts and unreliable at final answers. Every system we build knows which category it's in — and escalates to a person when it isn't confident, rather than inventing something plausible.
Efficiency belongs to the client
When a tool makes us faster, that shows up in your quote rather than becoming quiet extra margin. Hosting, domains, model usage and licences all go on your own accounts at cost, so we never have a reason to steer you toward the expensive option.
Your data is your data
We default to Canadian or US data residency depending on your obligations, turn off training-on-your-data wherever a vendor offers the switch, and tell you plainly which third parties touch what. If a workload can't leave your walls, we'll build it so it doesn't.
Practicalities
The details people ask about.
Hours and response
Monday to Friday, 9–6 Eastern. Email gets a reply within one business day. We don't offer contractual 24/7 staffed support — if you need that, you need a larger firm, and we'll say so.
Contracts and invoicing
Plain-language agreements, Ontario law. One fixed price agreed before work starts. HST on Canadian invoices. Interac, wire, or card.
Insurance and compliance
Happy to provide proof of coverage, sign your NDA, and complete vendor security questionnaires. Just ask during scoping.
Bigger jobs
We stay small on purpose, so there is a ceiling. Past a certain size you need a firm with real bench depth and staffed cover, and we will tell you that rather than stretch to fit. We would rather refer you on than do it badly.
What we won't do
Scraping people's personal data, mass unsolicited outreach, engagement-farming content, or anything designed to deceive the people it's aimed at. We'll say no and explain why.
Currently taking on new work
Let's find out if it's worth building.
Fifteen minutes on a call, no obligation and no pitch deck. Worst case you leave with a clearer idea of the problem than you had going in.