You keep hearing you should "do something with AI"
and you don't know which of the dozen possibilities is real and which is noise. You want someone to tell you straight, not sell you all twelve.
services
AI for SMEs, built and shipped — not pitched.
I help CEOs of established UK businesses find the one or two places AI actually saves time or money, then I build the system and hand it over working. No pilots that die, no decks.
Seventeen years as a CTO, with agentic AI running in production today. If AI won't help your business, the first call is where I tell you that.
You tried it and nothing changed
ChatGPT licences for the team, a pilot last year that's still a pilot. You need to know whether to push through or kill it.
You've found a use case but can't build it
You know what you want; you don't have the engineering to ship it and you'd rather not hand it to an agency that's never deployed an agent in production.
What this actually does for the business.
01
Saves time on work that doesn't need a human.
The first build targets your biggest repetitive cost — support replies, document handling, data entry between systems. The system does the work; your team checks and approves.
02
Saves money by replacing the slow, manual path.
A working system on your real data, integrated with your existing tools (CRM, inbox, ERP), with the unglamorous parts handled: agentic workflow design, error handling, monitoring, rollback.
03
Keeps you competitive without betting the business.
An AI readiness audit and ranked roadmap of where AI is worth spending — effort, cost, and expected return for each — so you invest in the one thing that moves your numbers first. Your board gets a document that holds up; your team gets AI trainingso they're not dependent on me.
Why I'm the one building it.
I spent 17 years as CTO of a range of industrial groups. I know what it takes to run IT at scale because I've lived it: boards, budgets, legacy tech stacks, the lot.
Most AI consultants talk. I take action.
I build the multi-step agents, configure the tool use, and set up secure retrieval over private data with strict guardrails and audit logs. I do the actual engineering; I don't subcontract it out.
If you want a strategy deck, hire an agency. If you want a single operator to design, build, and deploy your first working AI system, let's get to work.
proof
Recent work.
Services.
01
Training
Typical timeframe · 1 day
Practical team training on where AI helps, where it does not, and how to use it safely inside real business workflows.
02
AI Audit
Typical timeframe · 2-3 weeks
A focused review of your data, processes, tools, risks, and highest-return use cases, delivered as a ranked roadmap.
03
Systems Implementation
Typical timeframe · 4-12 weeks
Designing, building, testing, and shipping the first working AI system into the tools your team already uses.
pricing
Pricing.
DAY RATE
£1,200
MINIMUM ENGAGEMENT
3 days
Most engagements are a discovery sprint followed by an implementation phase. Pricing excludes VAT.
questions
Common questions.
- What does an AI readiness audit cost and cover?
- A fixed-scope audit is typically £4–6k over two to three weeks. It covers three things: your data (is it usable by a model?), your processes (which genuinely benefit from automation?), and your team (who owns the system once it's live?). You get a written, board-ready document with a ranked list of where to invest and where not to bother.
- Will AI actually save my business money, or is it hype?
- Both are true depending on the use case, which is why the first step is an audit, not a build. AI reliably saves money on high-volume repetitive work — support, document handling, moving data between systems. It rarely pays off when forced onto a process that's already fine. If your problem isn't a fit, I'll tell you on the first call.
- Does this work for a non-technical business?
- Yes — most of the real AI value in SMEs is in non-technical businesses. The bottleneck is almost never the technology; it's the data, the process, and the team. If you have an operations problem and a willingness to change how the work gets done, the technical side is the easy part.
- How is this different from a typical AI consultant?
- Most AI consultancy ends at a slide deck or a pilot. I deliver a working system on your real data and hand it over running. I also build it myself rather than subcontracting it.
- Do you handle data security and GDPR?
- Yes. Most deployments run inside your existing cloud (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, AWS, Azure) with no data leaving your tenancy. Where external models are used, I use enterprise tiers with no-training contracts and document the data flow for your board. GDPR by default; ISO 27001 alignment where customers require it.
- What does it cost to get started?
- The minimum engagement is three days at £1,200/day ex. VAT. Most clients start with a discovery sprint, then decide on implementation once they've seen the ranked roadmap.