Hot Ash Studios Puts Fae on Real Client Issues

Jeremy Jones runs Hot Ash Studios on his own, with an occasional extra pair of hands. He looks after about 30 endpoints for fewer than 10 small businesses, from healthcare clients to a kitchen remodeler and a flooring company. He brings about 20 years in IT, starting in large healthcare IT and later leading software and data teams.

At the interview in March 2026, about 10 endpoints were on OpenFrame, a mix of his own devices and a few client machines. When two clients came to him with problems, he handed both to Fae, OpenFrame's AI agent on the end user's desktop. Fae found the cause, pushed back on a security trade-off, and fixed the registry problem once he approved it as the technician.

Jeremy is the whole help desk. When a client's computer misbehaves, the phone call, Teams message or Slack message comes straight to him.

He had mostly stayed away from RMM platforms. His day-to-day tool was a separate remote-access tool. It works well for him, but in his words, "it doesn't monitor everything." He wanted monitoring, and he wanted the first round of troubleshooting to happen before a client reached him.

OpenFrame showed up in his feed, on LinkedIn or TikTok. He doesn't remember which. His reaction: "Oh, this is sweet. I can trial out their SaaS version and see how it works."

Jeremy put OpenFrame on about 10 endpoints. Then two clients came to him with problems. Remote control in OpenFrame had a problem at the time, so he remoted in with his other tool. Then he turned both issues over to Fae. His thinking: "these are problems that should be solved by the AI agent that's on the desktop."

The first time, he described the problem the way an IT person would, and Fae picked it up well. The second was a Windows 11 file-sharing fix for a healthcare client, and this time he played the end user. "So I prompted it like I was an end user, and it picked up the issue right away."

The fix meant a change to the Windows registry. Fae flagged it as a security risk and suggested another route. Jeremy knew the setup, so he told Fae he was the IT guy and approved the change as the technician. Fae made it. "It did fix it. So it's really nice."

He wants that approval step. "I think that it's wholly appropriate when a script needs to be executed against the registry that the technician has a look at that." An end user shouldn't decide how a client's system is set up, even with local admin rights.

He has since told a few clients to try Fae. He asked them to tell him when they do, because he gets no alert when Fae is waiting on his approval.

At the interview in March 2026, OpenFrame was on about 10 of the roughly 30 endpoints Jeremy manages. Fae had worked two live client issues. It diagnosed both, and it fixed the registry problem once he approved it.

He hadn't tried Mingo, OpenFrame's AI agent for technicians, yet. He still ran his separate remote-access tool, mainly for end-user and phone sessions. His take on the product so far: "the UI is very snappy, laid out pretty well." And: "For what you guys have right now, I think it works pretty damn well."

On going commercial: "I would probably go commercial with you guys as long as the price is in the right ballpark." His other condition was fuller ticketing.

What he still wants is mostly polish: an alert when Fae is waiting on a technician's approval, remote sessions for end users and mobile devices, ticketing that records his work and time and leads to an invoice, bring-your-own API keys for Fae and Mingo when self-hosted, customizable compliance policies for healthcare and pharmacy clients, a signed installer or MSI package, and auto-generated documentation of each client's environment. What he expects next: clients going to Fae before they call him. "Go talk to Fae first. That is a margin improvement because it saved my time."