About

What if the problem isn't that you lack expertise—it's that expertise has been artificially gatekept?

For 20 years, I've worked in offensive security: penetration testing, compliance assessments, security architecture. I've completed thousands of security assessments for Fortune 100 companies, led teams managing multi-million dollar programs, and earned every certification the industry said I needed.

In March 2024, I left corporate cybersecurity without another job lined up. Not because I was successful enough to retire—because I realized I was part of a system that fundamentally fails the people it claims to serve.

The Problem We're Not Talking About

The cybersecurity industry has a skilled labor shortage. Organizations that can't afford $200/hour consultants go without security. People who want to build expertise can't get hired without experience, can't get experience without being hired. We've created a gatekeeping system that concentrates expertise in expensive consulting firms while leaving everyone else vulnerable.

I tried solving this with Lab33, a Private Membership Association offering affordable security services to underserved organizations. It failed—not because the mission was wrong, but because the model was fundamentally broken. You can't solve a systemic problem (lack of skilled people) with individual effort (me doing more consulting).

No matter how much I wanted to serve everyone, I couldn't clone myself.

What Changed Everything

AI capabilities exploded between 2022-2024. Not the overhyped "AI will replace everyone" narrative—the practical reality that with proper guidance and structured workflows, anyone willing to learn can access decades of methodology.

The insight: Expertise doesn't have to live in expensive consultants. It can live in deployable frameworks.

That's Intelligence Adjacent.

Intelligence Adjacent: The Mission

I'm not building this so people have to pay ME for expertise. I'm building it so they can develop expertise THEMSELVES.

Intelligence Adjacent is an AI infrastructure framework that provides specialized agents, reusable skills, and professional-grade security tools—accessible to anyone willing to learn. It's built on the principle that orchestration and scaffolding matter more than raw intelligence.

Three deployment scenarios:

Learning at Home - Security professionals and career changers deploy the framework on their laptop (zero cost), practice in safe lab environments, build portfolio work BEFORE getting hired. Enter the job market with real experience, not just certifications.
Small Organizations - Churches, nonprofits, small businesses deploy enterprise-grade security capabilities for $20-35/month instead of hiring $50,000 consultants. Run your own vulnerability scans, generate professional risk assessments, protect your mission without gatekeepers.
Solo Consultants - Independent security consultants deploy the framework to 10X their capacity. Focus on strategy while AI handles execution. Serve 10-15 clients per month instead of 2-3, without hiring anyone.

The revolution is access. (See the complete framework architecture)

What I've Built So Far

The Intelligence Adjacent framework currently includes:

5 specialized agents with 18 industry-standard skills
42 professional security tools deployed on VPS infrastructure
Multi-model AI architecture (Claude, Grok, Perplexity)
Three engagement modes: Director (production), Mentor (learning), Demo (testing)
70-95% token efficiency improvements through VPS deployment patterns

(Read the consolidation story here)

Everything is grounded in established frameworks: NIST CSF, CIS Controls, ISO 27001, OWASP ASVS, MITRE ATT&CK, PCI DSS, HIPAA. Zero made-up methodology. Audit-ready deliverables. Professional-grade outputs.

Why This Matters Now

The employment model is collapsing. Companies are laying off experienced workers while celebrating record profits. The market isn't rewarding loyalty, credentials, or decades of expertise—it's rewarding cost reduction.

I'm not going to tell you to "stay positive" or "trust the system." The system is broken.

What we can control: Building capability everywhere, not concentrating it in expensive consulting firms. Redirecting budgets from external dependency to internal empowerment. Teaching self-deployment instead of creating retained client relationships.

Pay your people to learn and deploy these frameworks, not consultants to do the work for you.

That's the mission.

What You'll Find Here

This blog documents the build:

Technical implementation guides - How to deploy IA components yourself
Architecture decisions - Why certain patterns work better than others
Industry analysis - What's happening in cybersecurity and AI, with unique insights
Mission updates - The evolution of Intelligence Adjacent

Everything aims to be reproducible. If I write about building something, you should be able to build it yourself.

Who This Serves

If you're learning security at home - Deploy the framework, practice with professional tools, build real experience before entering the job market.

If you run a small organization - Deploy enterprise-grade security capabilities without hiring expensive consultants.

If you're a solo consultant - 10X your capacity by letting AI handle execution while you focus on strategy.

If you believe expertise should be accessible - Follow the journey, contribute ideas, deploy the framework yourself.

The Journey Continues

I don't know if we'll succeed. The odds of disrupting an industry built on gatekeeping are long. But I know this: doing the same thing that failed (affordable consulting) won't work. We need systemic solutions to systemic problems.

Intelligence Adjacent is that attempt.

Subscribe to follow the build. Deploy the framework yourself. Join the mission of making expertise accessible.

Subscribe for free | Become a member - $5/month

Building systems that augment human intelligence, not replace it.

Chris Groves
Offensive Security Professional | 20+ Years Experience | OSCP, OSCE, OSWP
Founder, Intelligence Adjacent