One operator.

I’m Silvester Vrbancic, an AI and security consultant on the Gold Coast. I help small and mid-sized businesses find the one or two processes actually worth automating, build them properly, and tell them plainly when AI isn’t the answer.

Why Hopsy SV exists.

I’ve spent about two years as a full-stack engineer in three very different places: a structural engineering firm, an AI computer vision startup, and a large national travel company. Across product and infrastructure, AI was always one of many hats.

At the startup, I saw what fast looks like: a small team shipping working AI in weeks, because nobody was waiting for permission.

Then I moved to the big company and watched the opposite, over and over. A team would find a process AI could fix in a fortnight, then spend months waiting on a licence approval, a security review, a steering committee and a vendor shortlist. By the time anyone could use the tool, the problem had moved on or the team had built a worse workaround.

The technology was never the bottleneck. The process around it was.

So I left to build the version I wanted to work in: one engineer, no procurement cycle, no committee. You describe the problem, I measure it, and if it’s worth building, I build it in weeks, not quarters. If it isn’t, I tell you, and that takes a phone call rather than a phase-one report.

Moving fast doesn’t mean cutting corners. I’ve worked where security reviews exist for good reasons, so the work I hand over is documented, runs on tools you control, and doesn’t send your data anywhere it shouldn’t go. You get the speed of a startup with the habits of a big company.

Related: The AI implementation lifecycle →

Things I’ve actually built.

  • Completed 2026

    Invoice Scheduler

    Turns a folder of invoice PDFs into validated, BAS-ready data using a model running locally, so no invoice data leaves the machine. Every extraction is checked with plain arithmetic: ABN checksum, GST as 1/11 of the total, and date sanity. Only the flagged invoices need a human.

    Write-up →GitHub →

  • In progress

    Deleting myself from the internet

    Using AI to map where my personal data lives online and automate removing it. It’s the privacy and security side of the practice, tested on myself first.

    Write-up →

Got a problem that eats real hours?

Send me a note describing it. I’ll tell you plainly, within 48 hours, whether it’s the kind of thing AI can fix.

Let’s work together →

Free 30-minute call. No slides, no upsell.

— Silvester