AI and automation strategy
Where AI helps, where it does not, and what to build first.
Consult · Complex technical problems
Advice from someone who has to be right.
Architecture reviews, AI and automation strategy and technical advisory for decisions that are difficult, expensive or hard to undo.
What a consulting engagement covers
Consulting here is short, specific and technical. It exists for the decisions where being wrong is costly: an architecture that will not scale, an AI programme that never leaves the pilot, a platform that has become the constraint on the business.
The output is a position you can act on. The reasoning is shown and the trade-offs are named instead of smoothed over.
- AI & automation strategy
- System architecture
- Feasibility & prototyping
- Technology due diligence
- Modernisation planning
Typical work
What this looks like in practice
System architecture review
An assessment of what you have and what it will cost to keep.
Feasibility and prototyping
Answering “can this be built, and what would it take?” with something running.
Technology due diligence
Independent technical assessment ahead of an investment or acquisition.
Modernisation planning
A route off legacy you can afford, where every step ends somewhere you could stop.
Compliance that has to survive an audit
ISO 9001, 14001 and 27001 implemented in 2021 in a business I owned, so a control that works on paper and fails in practice is a familiar shape.
In more detail: AI implementation and automation · Technical due diligence
Where it starts
The Leverage Diagnostic.
Two weeks, fixed, £7,500.
All prices exclude VAT.
Two weeks to find the costly constraint, prove the risky assumption, and price the right response.
Most consulting questions turn out to be the diagnostic in miniature: what is costing you, why, and what would settle it. Where the question is narrow enough to answer in a call, I’ll say so and we won’t run a fortnight. A bounded review between the two, such as due diligence on one system, is billed at £1,000 a day, with the days agreed before it starts.
You leave with one agreed proof, and a decision you can act on.
Questions
The things people ask first
Can you review a system somebody else built?
Yes. Architecture reviews and technical due diligence are both regular work: an honest read of a codebase, a team or an acquisition target, written for the person who has to make the decision, not for the engineers.
Other ways to work together
Not quite the right shape?
Build
Hands-on engineering
Bespoke software, SaaS products and internal systems built from the ground up and delivered to production.
- Product design & architecture
- Full-stack development
- Desktop, browser-extension and chat clients
- APIs & integrations
- Cloud & DevOps
- AI-enabled features where useful
Partner
Technical leadership
A technical co-founder or fractional CTO to own the technology function: what gets built, in what order, and on what architecture.
- Technical/product strategy
- Architecture
- Team leadership
- Roadmaps & execution
- Technical due diligence
Work with me
Losing time or money to something you can’t fix?
I reply within one working day to arrange a free 30-minute call.