AI can write your infrastructure. It can't decide what it should be.

Proxima helps government agencies and growing businesses make the cloud, security and AI decisions that are expensive to undo. AI does much of the building, so your budget goes on getting it right.

Approved supplier, NSW Government ICT Services Scheme (SCM0020). NSW agencies can engage Proxima directly, without a full tender.

Reporting agent: read access to exports iam/report_agent.tf
Proxima reviewer

The agent only reads exported reports. s3:* on every bucket would let a prompt-injected agent delete the audit logs. Scoped to the one prefix it needs.

Automated security and policy checks passed
Production change waiting on a named approver
An AI assistant drafted this access rule in seconds. It worked, but it would have let a compromised agent delete the audit logs. Catching that before it ships is the job.

The build is now the cheap part

Writing infrastructure code used to be most of a consulting bill. AI has collapsed that. The cost of getting the big decisions wrong hasn't changed.

What AI now does well

Drafting infrastructure code, pipelines, policies, tests and documentation. Work that took weeks takes days.

What it still gets wrong

Choices that look fine in a pull request and hurt two years later: an account structure that fights your org chart, a network that can't absorb a merger, permissions left wide because they worked.

Where we spend your money

Design with your people, decisions written down with their reasons, review of everything AI produces, and a handover your team can run.

Knowledge that stays when people leave

Design knowledge used to live in documents nobody read, or in the heads of people who moved on. With spec-driven development it lives in your repositories, where your people and their AI tools both work from it.

Specs before code

Every change starts from a short specification of what it must and must never do. AI writes against it; reviewers check against it.

Decisions with their reasons

Why the network is shaped this way, why a risk was accepted, which options were rejected. Written once, read every time the design is extended.

Kept current by use

AI reads these files on every change, so an out-of-date spec shows up fast as wrong code. Knowledge that's used daily doesn't go stale.

Where we can help

Each service starts from the problem that's hard to solve, not the tools used to solve it. Clear scope and an agreed measure of success.

Bringing AI into your DevSecOps practice

Decisions we make togetherWhich work AI takes on, where people decide, which checks are hard stops, which tools may touch which code.

Most teams bought AI coding tools and expected speed. It doesn't arrive on its own. In a small controlled study, experienced developers were 19% slower with AI while believing they were faster.1 Google's DORA research found AI amplifies whatever a team already has.2

We measure where your delivery time goes, then redesign the workflow. AI drafts, reviews first and triages scanner noise. Automated checks are hard stops, and people decide what ships. Your standards are written into the repositories so the AI works your way.

Measured by lead time, change failure rate, review time and issues caught before production, before and after.

Cloud foundations that fit how you're organised

Decisions we make togetherAccount structure and ownership, IP address plan, identity model, networking, logging and retention, how exceptions get approved.

Any capable team can now generate a working AWS landing zone in a week. The costly mistakes are in its shape: accounts that don't match who is accountable, a network that can't absorb the next merger or machinery-of-government change, guardrails so tight that teams route around them.

We work through those decisions with your architects, security and finance people, and record each with the options rejected. The build is AI-assisted and reviewed line by line, so most of the budget goes on the shape.

Measured by time to a new compliant account, share of workloads inside guardrails, and no rebuild when you grow.

Saying yes to AI, safely

Decisions we make togetherWhich data may go to which AI tools, who approves a new use case and on what evidence, how much an agent may do alone, what happens when one misbehaves.

AI brings new risks: sensitive data pasted into public tools, agents with more access than intended, models talked into misbehaving, no record of who approved what. Blocking AI doesn't work; staff use it anyway.

Scanners and pipelines are the plumbing. What we build is an approval path your organisation trusts: data rules people can follow, a hard limit on what each agent can reach, attacker-style testing, and a plan for when something goes wrong. For NSW agencies, it produces the evidence the AI Assessment Framework asks for.

Measured by time to approve a new use case, unapproved AI tools in use, and reviews passed first time.

A security review that ends in fixes

Decisions we make togetherWhich risks to fix now, which to accept, and who owns them.

Security tools produce hundreds of findings and no way to tell which five matter.

AI groups and de-duplicates the findings in hours. The time saved goes on tracing real attack paths through identity and network, and fixing the worst of them with you.

Measured by critical attack paths closed within the engagement, not pages of report.

Cloud and AI spend that someone owns

Decisions we make togetherWho owns each cost, what a unit of your business should cost to run, which AI model is worth paying for on which task.

AI is now the fastest-growing and least governed line on many cloud bills. One runaway agent loop or oversized model can cost more in a month than its server does in a year.

AI works through your billing and tagging data in days. The time goes on what lasts: architecture that costs less by design, the right model for each task, and budgets with a named owner.

Measured by cost per transaction, customer or case, and the share of spend with an owner.

1. METR, randomised controlled trial with 16 experienced open-source developers, 2025 (summary). 2. Google Cloud, 2025 DORA State of AI-assisted Software Development.

What it's worth

We agree how an engagement will be measured before it starts, and we report against it at the end. If we can't show how it pays for itself, we'll tell you not to buy it.

Engineering time

Hours recovered from drafting, review and triage, at your team's real cost.

Delivery speed

Lead time and deployment frequency, from your own pipeline data.

Cost per unit

What one transaction, customer or case costs to run, AI included.

Risk removed

Critical findings closed and issues that no longer reach production.

Less reliance on individuals

How fast a new engineer ships safely, and what stops when one person is away.

A worked example

A platform team of eight engineers. Each spends about six hours a week on work AI can now draft or triage: boilerplate, first-pass review, scanner noise, documentation. The aim is to recover half of it, safely.

Figures are illustrative. In the first week of an engagement we replace them with yours.

Engineers8
Hours a week on draftable work, each6
Share recovered50%
Hours recovered a week24
Loaded cost an hour$100
Value over 48 working weeks$115,200
Time only. Faster lead times, fewer incidents and avoided rework come on top, and are measured separately.

How we use AI, and where we don't

AI is part of our own delivery every day, and it's a big part of why we can stay lean. These are the rules we follow on every engagement.

AI helps with

  • Drafting infrastructure code, pipelines and policies
  • A first pass over every change, before a person reviews it
  • Sorting and summarising findings, logs and evidence
  • First drafts of documentation, which we then edit

A person is always responsible for

  • Every change that reaches your environments
  • Anything touching identity, network boundaries, encryption or logging, checked against a written list
  • Design decisions and the trade-offs behind them
  • Signing off what we deliver, by name

Your code and data

We follow your organisation's AI usage policy. Without one, we default to the strictest position: none of your code, configuration or data goes to a third-party AI service without your written approval.

If you want AI in the workflow, it can run inside your own AWS account, so nothing leaves your environment. We document exactly which tools touched your engagement.

Fixed-scope engagements

Each engagement has a clear scope, a set duration and an agreed measure of success. Start at whichever stage fits; each builds on the one before.

Stage 1

Baseline and ground rules

For teams already using AI tools without a plan.

  • Measure lead time, failure rate and where review time goes
  • Find the work AI can safely take on, and what it can't
  • Agree which tools may touch which code and data
  • An adoption plan with the expected return

Result: a baseline to measure against and a plan your security team supports.

2 weeks

Stage 2

Pilot with one team

For proving the return before rolling it out.

  • Workflow redesigned with the team, not for them
  • Specs and standards written into the repositories
  • Automated checks as hard stops, people on the decisions
  • Before-and-after measures reported to leadership

Result: one team measurably faster, with the numbers to show it.

4 to 6 weeks

Stage 3

Roll out across teams

For taking a proven pattern to the rest of engineering.

  • Shared standards and playbooks other teams adopt
  • Internal champions trained to carry it on
  • Measures built into your existing reporting
  • Optional quarterly review as tools change

Result: the gains spread and stay after we leave.

6 to 8 weeks

On cost: we're lean, so we can be flexible. We'll work with you on a scope and commercial arrangement that suits both of us, whether that's a fixed price, a staged approach or a small first step. Not sure where to start? Try a two-week stage 1. If it doesn't find anything worth acting on, you don't pay.

Why work with Proxima

Founded
2023, Sydney
Sectors
Federal and state government, financial services, insurance, retail and logistics
Insurance
Professional indemnity and public liability
Procurement
NSW ICT Services Scheme (SCM0020). Registered on Buy NSW, VendorPanel and AusTender
ABN
92 669 142 885

We bring years of delivery experience across government, financial services, insurance, retail and logistics, and we shape every engagement around the client's needs. Whether that's a focused review or a larger program, the team is sized to the job and led by senior people from start to finish.

  • We practise what we advise. AI is part of our own delivery every day, so our advice on adopting it comes from doing it.
  • We show you the numbers. Every engagement is measured before and after, and you see the results whichever way they fall.
  • Governance comes as standard. We design to the Essential Eight and government security and AI policy, which also suits regulated businesses.
  • You keep the knowledge. Specs, decisions and standards live in your repositories, used daily by your team and its AI tools.

Start with a 30-minute call

Tell us where you are. We'll suggest the most useful first step and how we'd measure it, then follow up with a proposal that works for both of us. No obligation.

Phone0432 403 720

Emailinfo@proxima-consulting.com.au

LinkedInProxima Consulting on LinkedIn

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