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Flagship practice

AI Advisory & Strategy

Most AI advice comes from people who have never shipped an AI system. Ours comes from building and operating AI agents in production — combined with two decades of architecting for the most demanding institutions in the UK. We help you separate genuine opportunity from expensive theatre.

What we do

From “should we?” to “it’s running”

AI Readiness & Opportunity Assessment

A structured review of your data foundations, architecture, team capability and risk posture. You get a prioritised, costed roadmap of where AI genuinely creates value in your business — and where it doesn’t.

GenAI & Agent Strategy

LLM and agent architecture, model selection, retrieval design, build-vs-buy decisions and vendor evaluation. We design AI capabilities that fit your systems and your economics — informed by agents we operate ourselves.

AI Governance for Regulated Firms

Model governance, human-in-the-loop design, auditability, data privacy and residency, and alignment with the EU AI Act and FCA expectations. Controls designed in from the start, not bolted on after the pilot.

Delivery & Production Hardening

We take AI from proof-of-concept to production: integration with core systems, evaluation frameworks, cost and latency optimisation, monitoring and safe rollout. The unglamorous work that makes AI actually stick.

Why us

Advice grounded in operating experience

There is no shortage of AI opinions. What’s scarce is judgement formed by shipping — knowing what breaks at scale, what users actually trust, and what a regulator will ask.

  • We build and operate AI agents in production within our own products — daily, real users, real cost curves
  • 20+ years of enterprise architecture at Tier 1 banks — we know how AI must fit regulated estates
  • Vendor-neutral: we hold no reseller agreements and recommend what fits, not what pays commission
  • End to end: the person who writes your AI strategy can also review the code that implements it

Typical engagements

  • 2–4 week AI readiness assessment with board-ready roadmap
  • AI use-case discovery and prioritisation workshops
  • Architecture and governance design for a GenAI programme
  • Independent review of an existing AI initiative or vendor proposal
  • Ongoing AI advisory retainer alongside your leadership team
FAQ

AI advisory questions, answered

What is an AI readiness assessment?

A review of your data foundations, systems architecture, team capability, governance and risk posture to determine where AI can create genuine value — and what needs to be true before it can. The output is a prioritised, costed roadmap rather than a generic maturity score.

Can regulated firms safely adopt generative AI?

Yes — with the right controls: clear model governance, human-in-the-loop design, auditability, data-residency and privacy controls, and alignment with frameworks such as the EU AI Act and FCA expectations. We design these in from the start, not retrofit them.

Should we build AI capability in-house or buy it?

Differentiating capability close to your core product usually justifies building; commodity capability is usually better bought or configured. We help you draw that line pragmatically — including model and vendor selection, and avoiding lock-in.

What makes your AI advice different?

We are practitioners, not analysts. We operate AI agents in production in our own products and bring 20+ years of Tier 1 architecture experience. Our recommendations reflect what works when AI meets real users, real data and real regulators.

Cut through the AI noise

Book a 30-minute call. Bring your hardest AI question — we’ll give you a straight answer, whether or not you engage us.

Book a Strategy Call