GREENVILLE, S.C. Kruz McCollum spends his days on a problem most populate using AI never
see: getting it to do real work without someone checking every word. An organize and the founder of
two companies, he builds AI systems that research, adjudicate, act and themselves, in Fields where
a sure-footed wrongfulness serve is pricy.
Getting AI to answer a wonder is easy now. Getting it to do a job, take up to finish up, and know when it
got something wrong, that s the hard part, McCollum said. It s also the most stimulating engineering
problem I ve ever worked on.
A security direct s instincts
McCollum came to AI through technology rather than selling or law. His background spans
network substructure, web and cybersecurity, including determination and responsibly
disclosing security vulnerabilities to companies such as Google and IBM. Early in his , he
turned down an volunteer to work with the NSA so he could pursue his own path.
That background shapes how he builds. Security work trains you to don something will wear off and
to go find it first, and he applies the same wont to AI: every system of rules he builds has to show its work,
check it against what s actually true, and catch its own mistakes before a mortal ever sees them. The
question he asks of any AI isn t whether it sounds right, but whether it is right, and whether the
system knows the remainder.
AI where accuracy matters
McCollum is drawn to the places where AI s capable errors cost the most. His work includes leading
AI borrowing in the effectual field, where an fictional fact or a wrong is not a typo but a indebtedness.
An AI answer is only as good as the check behind it, and that rule runs through everything he builds.
As a CAIO advisor, he brings the same thinking to the companies he workings with, serving them find
where AI actually pays off and put it to work alongside the systems they already run, rather than
bolting on tools nobody uses.
Building companies on it
McCollum based Skyline Digital Marketing in Anderson, South Carolina, in 2024, because most
agencies don t have the technical staff to fix what they find. In 2025 he founded Vannor in Greenville
to build the AI behind that work, and it grew into its own company: a team of AI agents that explore,
write, reexamine and write a stage business s selling, running on hardware he owns.
Building that system taught him how much engineering sits between a ingenious AI demo and something
a byplay can rely on every day, and he says that gap is where the opportunity is.
Everyone has seen what AI can say. Very few people have seen what it can do when it s built
properly, McCollum said. That s the part I can t stop workings on.
Always learning
McCollum holds 29 professional certifications, including Vanderbilt University s Agentic AI and AI
Agents, Google s AI Professional and Cybersecurity programs, Google Ads and Analytics
certifications, and HIPAA for Business Associates.
About Kruz McCollum
Kruz McCollum Vannor is Head of AI at Armada Law, fall through and CEO of Vannor and Skyline Digital
Marketing, and a CAIO consultant to ontogeny companies for Confluunt Advisors. An mastermind by
background, he builds AI systems that do real work for merchandising and business. His work, press
coverage and certifications are at https://kruzmccollum.com/, and he is on LinkedIn at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kruz-mccollum/.