M22 Notes

Thinking from the work.

Practical writing on AI, automation and operations: what actually pays, what to avoid, and how the systems work in plain English.

  1. August 2026 · 6 min readWhat does an AI consultancy actually do?Strip away the hype and an AI consultancy does three things: finds where your business loses money to manual work, proves the value of fixing it, and builds the fix. Here's what that looks like in practice.
  2. August 2026 · 6 min readHow much does an AI consultancy cost in the UK?Nobody publishes prices, everybody asks. Here are the real shapes UK AI consultancy pricing takes in 2026, the ranges behind them, and the only question that makes a price good or bad.
  3. August 2026 · 7 min readClaude vs ChatGPT for business: how to choose in 2026A question business owners ask all the time, and the answer most articles dodge: it depends on the task, and picking per-task is easier than you think.
  4. August 2026 · 6 min read8 AI automations UK businesses are actually running in 2026Not concepts, not pilots: the eight automations we see paying for themselves inside UK businesses right now, and what each one actually does behind the scenes.
  5. August 2026 · 7 min readWhat is a Company Brain? Your business knowledge, in one place that answers backEvery business runs on knowledge scattered across inboxes, drives, meeting notes and people's heads. A Company Brain is what happens when you connect it all, and let people ask.
  6. August 2026 · 8 min readHow to run an AI audit on your own business (the framework we use)You don't need a consultancy to start. This is the framework we use on client engagements, written so you can run a version of it yourself in a week.
  7. August 2026 · 6 min readBespoke AI software vs off-the-shelf: build or buy?Buying is faster and cheaper, until the day it isn't. Building is expensive, except when it's the bargain. The decision comes down to three questions.
  8. August 2026 · 7 min readGDPR and AI: using LLMs safely with UK customer dataYou can use AI on customer data lawfully and safely; plenty of UK businesses do. The rules are mostly the ones you already know, applied carefully to some new plumbing.
  9. August 2026 · 6 min readAI agents, explained in plain English (for people who run businesses)An agent is an AI that doesn't just answer; it does. Looks things up, uses your systems, completes multi-step work. Here's how they work and where the line is in 2026.
  10. August 2026 · 5 min readHuman-in-the-loop: why the best automation keeps a person in chargeThe automations that survive contact with reality share one design choice: at every point where a mistake would be expensive, embarrassing or irreversible, a person says yes.
  11. August 2026 · 6 min readAI in property site sourcing: a practical UK guideSite sourcing used to mean analysts, portals, title documents and spreadsheets. Here's what changes when the public data is connected and searchable from one screen, and where the limits are.
  12. August 2026 · 5 min readMeetings that file themselves: transcription automation done properlyTranscribing a meeting is easy now. The value is in what happens next: summaries filed to the right client, actions assigned, and nothing depending on anyone remembering to do it.
  13. August 2026 · 6 min readOpenAI, Anthropic or Google: choosing a model provider without betting the businessThe honest answer to 'which AI company should we use?' is: build so the question stops mattering. Here's what that looks like, and how we choose per task in the meantime.
  14. August 2026 · 6 min readRAG explained: how AI answers from your documents instead of making things upThe technique behind every 'chat with your documents' product, explained without the jargon, because if you buy or build one, you should know how it works and where it breaks.
  15. September 2026 · 7 min readAI agent cost vs salary: the real maths for a UK businessOwners keep comparing a subscription price to a salary and getting the sums wrong on both sides. Here is what an AI agent costs per unit of work, what an employee really costs once the on-costs are in, and the comparison that actually holds up.
  16. September 2026 · 8 min readWhat an AI audit should give you (and what to refuse to pay for)"AI audit" gets sold as everything from a two-hour chat to a five-figure report. Here's what the deliverable should actually contain, and the four things worth refusing to pay for.
  17. September 2026 · 7 min readAccounts payable automation: what good looks like in 2026Every finance team has heard the pitch. Here's what accounts payable automation actually changes when it is done properly, what the manual version really costs, and where a person should still be the one who says yes.
  18. October 2026 · 7 min readPilot vs production: the checklist that decides whether an AI project ever paysA demo that worked once in a meeting room is not a production system, and the gap between the two is where most AI budgets disappear. Here is what actually has to change, and a checklist to run before you call something live.
  19. October 2026 · 7 min readCan AI monitor Companies House for you? What it catches, and what it still missesCompanies House publishes every UK company's filings, officers and ownership for free. An AI system can watch that feed and flag changes the moment they land, but the feed itself has gaps a human still needs to know about.