Consultancy

AI Consultant for Small Businesses in the UK

An AI consultant for a small business is the person who works out what AI is worth doing for you before you spend. They map your workflows, find the savings in pounds, and only build what earns its keep. UK-focused, plain-English, owner-led.

What they actually do ↓

The role

What an AI consultant does for a small business

  1. 1.

    Audits your workflows to find the time and money AI could save.

    Maps where your team is doing repeatable admin, where leads are falling through gaps, where the same information is being typed three times. Quantifies the cost of these gaps in pounds per year before recommending any AI tool.

  2. 2.

    Recommends specific tools and prompts, not vague AI strategy.

    Suggests the actual software your business should adopt: ChatGPT Team for drafting, Microsoft Copilot for 365 shops, custom workflows for everything else, with prompt templates your team can use on Monday morning. No "transformation roadmap" jargon.

  3. 3.

    Designs internal copilots and knowledge bases for your team.

    Builds AI assistants trained on your business's specific documentation, SOPs, and brand voice, so your team gets the right answer instead of generic AI output. The owner stays in the loop on what goes into the prompt and what comes out.

  4. 4.

    Sets up safe-use rules for client data and UK GDPR compliance.

    Writes the one-page policy for what client information can be put into AI tools, who reviews AI-generated client communications, and how to handle the inevitable mistakes. ICO-aware, not theoretical.

  5. 5.

    Trains your team to use AI in their working week.

    Runs short, practical sessions that produce three usable prompts and two new workflows per session. The aim is operational habit, not certificates. Documentation belongs in a shared place anyone on the team can find.

  6. 6.

    Tells you when AI is not the answer.

    Honest about when a problem is better solved by a process change, a hire, or just dropping the activity. The consultant's job is to make the business better, not to sell more AI.

Common questions

What buyers actually ask

The difference

The Devon Editorial difference

The bottleneck in a small business is usually still close to the founder. The owner is the person who quotes, who chases, who replies at 10pm because nobody else knows how to. This consultancy is built for that situation. Most clients have 10 to 100 staff, run on relationships and reputation, and need fewer things on their plate by Friday.

The work starts with workflow mapping, not tool selection. I interview the team, watch where the time goes, and quantify the cost of the gaps in pounds. The AI recommendations come after that. Tools chosen for fit, not for fashion. Built around the software your team already uses.

The audit ends with a roadmap that's yours. Yours to keep, even if you never hire me to build it. The aim is to make AI useful in your business, not to keep you on retainer. Plymouth-based, working across Devon and the UK, plain-English throughout.

The process

How the work actually runs

Step 1

Audit (1-2 weeks)

Interviews with you and 3-5 key team members. Workflow mapping. Cost-of-gap analysis in pounds per year. Risk register for data, vendor lock-in, and change-management. Deliverable: a prioritised roadmap and 30/60/90-day plan.

Step 2

Roadmap

The audit ends with a written roadmap that ranks AI opportunities by ROI in pounds. Yours to keep. You can implement it yourself, take it to another consultant, or hire me for step three. The aim is to leave you with clarity either way.

Step 3

Build (optional)

If you want me to build, I do the work directly using Claude Code for most workflows, or partner with specialist white-label implementers for larger or more specialised builds. Typical projects ship in 2-8 weeks with measurable results inside the first month.

Industries

Industries we work with

The common thread is not the industry. It is the owner who is still personally doing work AI could do better.

  • Trades
  • Accountancy
  • Solicitors
  • Estate agents
  • Property management
  • Healthcare practices
  • Recruitment
  • Marketing agencies
  • Tourism and hospitality
  • Food and drink

Proof in pounds

Two recent case studies

Two of five stories from a longer journal piece. Composite examples drawn from real audit patterns in Devon and the South West.

Plumbing and Heating · Plympton, Devon · 4 engineers

The out-of-hours enquiries that went straight to voicemail

60% of out-of-hours callers never rang back. The owner was losing an estimated £4,000 a month to competitors who answered first.

We set up an AI voice agent to answer 24/7. It asks five qualifying questions, books the job into the calendar, and texts the owner a summary by morning. Tool cost: £99/month. Setup: 8 hours.

18 extra jobs in month one. The owner stopped answering the personal phone after 6pm for the first time in 11 years.

£50,400

annual revenue uplift

Chiropractic Clinic · Exeter, Devon · 3 practitioners

The 15% no-show rate that was costing £600 a week

One in seven appointments was a no-show. At £60 per slot, £600 was walking out the door every week.

We built a CRM workflow that sends a personalised reminder the day before, voice-matched to each practitioner, with a one-tap reschedule link. Tool cost: £97/month. Setup: 5 hours.

No-show rate dropped from 15% to 4%. Practitioners stopped manually phoning to confirm.

£24,960

recovered annually

Read all five case studies →

Pricing

What it costs

AI Opportunity Audit

1-2 weeks, fixed scope

£5,000 – £15,000

AI Advisory Retainer

Monthly, no lock-in

£3,000 – £5,000 / month

  • 50% deposit, 50% on roadmap delivery
  • Roadmap is yours to keep, even if you never hire me to build
  • One 30-minute follow-up call within 30 days

I ship software too

The same hands that audit also build

Most AI consultants stop at the slide deck. I build production software solo, in regulated industries, end-to-end. The flagship is the TRT Platform: a multi-tenant clinical management SaaS for UK Testosterone Replacement Therapy and men's-health clinics. Multi-tenant auth, AI-assisted blood-test analysis, CQC-aligned audit logs, GDPR-compliant data handling.

Featured product

TRT Platform

Live build. Doctor login, patient flows, AI-assisted blood-test analysis all running.

See all my work →

The next step

Book the AI Opportunity Audit

If you've read this far and you're not sure what to do next, book the AI Opportunity Audit. We'll find the £100k together.

See what the audit covers
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