Next Pillar Opens: AI Implementation for Established, Owner-Led Companies
Will Taubenheim has launched Next Pillar, an AI implementation firm for established, owner-led companies. It opened in October 2026 at nextpillar.ai, with Will as CEO and Joe Staiber as partner.
What it is
Next Pillar installs a private brain for a company, and a simple app the team actually uses. The company's documents, meetings and the tools it already pays for are connected, so someone can ask a question and get an answer from the company's own records. A person still approves anything that goes out to a customer.
In Next Pillar's own words: “Next Pillar is an AI implementation firm for established, owner-led companies: we install a private company brain and a simple app your team actually uses, built with you in person over a few weeks. Then we stay.”
How an install works
- A discovery call. A conversation, not a pitch, about how the business runs and whether this fits.
- A scope. What gets connected, what gets built first, how long it takes and what it costs.
- A few weeks in person, working with the owner and the team: connecting the company's documents, meetings and tools, and building the app with the people who will use it.
- Then Next Pillar stays, to keep it working and keep building on it.
Who it is for
Established, owner-led companies with real operations, whose owners want AI built into the business with them rather than another course or tool. Next Pillar takes a small number of clients a year, and it is based in Tampa Bay, Florida.
Who leads it
Will is an AI engineer who builds systems that have to work under real pressure: in NASA's LunaRecycle Challenge, for the U.S. Navy and Air Force, and for businesses in healthcare, finance, real estate and the trades. On the Terasynth team he won four awards in NASA's LunaRecycle Challenge, including second place overall in the prototype track and People's Choice at the 2026 finale.
Joe Staiber, the partner, leads marketing and sales. He is co-founder and CEO of Tampa Entrepreneurs, a non-profit that hosts free events for business owners around Tampa Bay. Next Pillar's advisors are Nick Maciel, Georgi Gospodinov, PhD and Darren Lau.
Where it fits
Next Pillar is run by Next Pillar Capital, which Will co-founded. Its sister business, Next Pillar Academy, is where business owners learn to put AI to work themselves (its announcement). Both sit beside Lost Frame Ventures, the AI engineering company Will founded in 2018.