Manuel Portugal Reis

I help companies turn AI from demos into measurable business results.

MS in AI in Business, Arizona State University · Founder of Surgentia · Portuguese, English, Spanish, French

About

I founded and ran Surgentia, a digital growth business, working directly with clients whose success was measured in leads, conversions and revenue. That taught me the lesson I bring to AI: a model is only worth building if it moves a number the business already cares about.

Too many AI initiatives stop at an impressive demo. I focus on the step after it: choosing the right use case, estimating the return before committing budget, and designing the rollout so the result shows up in the business metrics.

I am now completing an MS in Artificial Intelligence in Business at Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business, and my research looks at how companies can assess the ROI of AI projects before they start.

I am looking for roles in AI strategy, AI consulting and AI product, in the United States or in French-speaking Switzerland (Geneva, Lausanne).

Experience

Founder, Surgentia

Digital growth & marketing · Lisbon, Portugal · 2023–2025

  • Founded and ran a digital growth and marketing business.
  • Served 5 clients with a team of 3.

Research

How Can Companies Evaluate ROI of AI Projects Before Implementation? A Pre-Implementation Readiness Assessment Framework

SSRN working paper · 2026 · DOI 10.2139/ssrn.7515980 · SSRN author page · ORCID

Many AI projects are abandoned after the pilot stage because their business value, data and costs were never assessed up front. This paper introduces PIAF, a nine-dimension scoring framework across strategic, operational and tactical levels that produces a single Composite Readiness Index to support a clear go/no-go decision before a company commits budget to an AI project.

Projects

Case studies of applied AI projects, published as they are completed.

Education

MS in Artificial Intelligence in Business

Arizona State University, W. P. Carey School of Business · 2026–2027

BSc in Business & Management

Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics · 2022–2025 · incl. exchange semester at Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá (2023)