Where to start. What to skip.
The hardest part of AI is not building it. It is working out which of the twenty things you could do is worth doing first, and being told plainly which ones are not worth doing at all.
We do this as a short, fixed-price piece of work that ends with something you can act on: the jobs in your business worth automating, ranked by what they cost you now and what they would cost to fix. If the conclusion is that you should do nothing yet, that is a legitimate result and we will say it in writing.
Also sold as AI strategy, AI advisory, AI readiness assessment and AI transformation consulting.
The work it takes
off your desk
Find where the hours actually go
Sitting with the people doing the work, because the process in the manual and the process on the floor are rarely the same thing.
Rank the opportunities honestly
By hours saved, by how measurable the saving is, and by how badly it goes wrong if the AI is imperfect. The best first project is rarely the most exciting one.
Put numbers against it
What each option would cost to build and to run, so you are comparing options rather than being sold one.
Say what to avoid
Including the things that are fashionable, the things your competitors are announcing, and the things that will not survive contact with your data.
No surprises,
in writing.
Scope and price agreed before anything is built. If we think you do not need this, we will tell you that instead.
Get a quote ↗- A written assessment of where AI would and would not pay in your business
- A ranked shortlist with estimated cost to build and to run
- The data and governance questions you need answered before starting
- A recommended first project, scoped tightly enough to be quoted
- No obligation to build any of it with us
Where this
goes wrong
Every supplier will tell you what their service does. These are the ways it fails, and what we do about each one. If a supplier cannot tell you this, they have not built enough of them.
A strategy that never ships
The classic consultancy failure is a thorough document and no change. This work ends in one scoped first project, not a roadmap of intentions.
Starting with the tool
Choosing the technology before the problem is how businesses end up with licences they do not use. The job comes first, always.
Starting with something customer-facing
It is tempting because it is visible, and it is the highest-risk place to learn. Internal work gives you the same lessons without a customer seeing the mistakes.
Advice from someone who only sells building
A supplier who cannot profitably tell you to do nothing will never tell you to do nothing. We would rather lose the build than sell you the wrong one.
What everyone
asks us
A written assessment, a ranked shortlist with costs, the governance questions you need to settle, and one recommended first project scoped tightly enough to quote. Not a slide deck of principles.
No. The assessment is a standalone piece of work and it is yours. Plenty of it is deliberately written so another supplier could act on it.
Especially for you. Most of our clients are ordinary UK businesses rather than tech firms. The output is in plain English and the technical decisions are ours to worry about.
A short piece of work, usually a couple of weeks depending on how many people we need to speak to, at a fixed price agreed before it starts.
Other AI services
Start with
one job.
Tell us the task that eats the most time. We will tell you honestly whether AI is the right answer for it, and what it would cost to find out.
Get a quotation