AI consultancy from the engineers who will build it
Quantum Craft's AI consultancy helps UK companies of roughly 10 to 250 people, and funded startups, decide where AI will pay and then make it work. The engineers who advise you build and run AI in production, and handle UK GDPR and the EU AI Act as part of the job. Start with a free 30-minute call, or an AI readiness assessment from £4,950, excluding VAT.
AI consultancy is advice on where AI will pay for itself in a business, carried through to a working system or to a written decision not to build one.
- From £4,950, excluding VAT
- One to two weeks
- You keep every report
Last reviewed
- First step
- An AI readiness assessment
- Tech due diligence
- From £6,500, one to two weeks
- Governance
- EU AI Act role and risk tier, UK GDPR, an AI use policy
- Ongoing
- A fractional CTO or head of AI
AI consulting services for UK SMEs and startups
The first question is usually the hardest. In DSIT's survey of UK businesses (opens in a new tab), published in January 2026, the most common barriers to adopting AI were having no identified use for it (71%) and limited skills (60%), with cost well behind at 23%. So the first two pieces of work are about finding the use.
AI readiness assessment
Our AI readiness assessment is the place to start if you are not sure where AI fits. Over one to two weeks we talk to the people who do the work and go through the data you hold. Staff often use more AI than the owner thinks: 55% of employees in Great Britain said they used AI for work or education in mid-2026, while around a third of businesses with ten or more staff reported using it (ONS, 2026 (opens in a new tab)). You get a scored assessment and a ranked shortlist of what to build, buy or leave alone, and in what order. The fee starts at £4,950, excluding VAT, and is fixed in writing before we begin.
Choosing an AI use case
Every candidate gets scored on the same questions: how often the task happens, what a wrong answer costs, whether the data exists, and whether the job needs an agent, a chatbot or a plain workflow. A use we recommend leaves with a baseline number, such as hours a week or days to answer a customer, so you can tell later whether it worked. It also needs a named owner in your business who wants it. Ideas without one go on a list, however good the demo looked.
Pilot to production
A pilot is only worth running if everyone agrees, before it starts, what passing looks like, measured against real cases from your own work. It goes into production once it passes and the workflow around it has changed, and once somebody has put the running cost into next year's budget. Plan on 20 to 30 per cent of the build cost a year to keep software running, plus model usage, which we measure per call from day one. We put the checks in code, because a prompt can only ask a model to behave. Anything that fails them goes to a person.
Technical due diligence for startups and investors
We do this for investors and acquirers, and for founders who would rather find the problems before an investor does. It takes one to two weeks, costs from £6,500 excluding VAT, and ends in a written report, with each finding ranked by what it would cost to put right. We cover the seven areas on the checklist investors work from, then the questions investors now put to AI products: which code AI wrote and who reviewed it, where the models and training data came from, what inference costs per customer, and whether any evaluation evidence exists.
Prototype rescue
If a prototype built with Lovable, Bolt.new, Replit or v0 now handles money, health data or customer records, have a senior engineer read it before more customers arrive. Our AI-built app audit takes about a week, costs a fixed £3,500 excluding VAT, and ends in a written recommendation to harden, refactor or rebuild, with the cost of each.
Fractional CTO or fractional head of AI
Some companies need senior technical judgement a few days a month and cannot justify a full-time hire yet. We make the technical and AI calls with you and check what suppliers deliver. When a board or an investor asks a technical question, we are the ones who answer it. We agree the days a month and a minimum term before we start, and decisions get written down as we go, so the knowledge stays with you when the arrangement ends.
AI governance: the EU AI Act and UK GDPR
Governance runs through every engagement, and it can be an engagement on its own. System by system, we settle whether you are the provider or deployer under the EU AI Act and which risk tier applies, then the UK GDPR duties that follow once personal data is involved.
In practice that means a lawful basis for each use of personal data, a data protection impact assessment where the risk is high, a notice wherever people deal with AI, and an AI use policy your staff will follow, backed by the records worth keeping. The Act reaches UK companies whose AI output is used in the EU, with or without an office there.
The rules are cheapest to meet at the design stage. On Karu, a practice platform we built for UK therapists, intake triage was designed as ranked suggestions that a person accepts or overrides, with the override recorded, so software alone never makes a significant decision about a client.
| Rule | Applies from | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| EU AI Act, Article 4 (AI literacy) | 2 February 2025, rewritten from 27 July 2026 | Take measures to support your staff's AI literacy. No particular level is required. |
| UK GDPR Articles 22A to 22D | 5 February 2026 | Significant decisions made solely by software are allowed on most lawful bases, if the person affected is told and can contest the decision with a human. Special category data stays tightly restricted. |
| EU AI Act, Article 50 (transparency) | 2 August 2026 | Tell people when they are dealing with AI, and mark AI-generated content. Enforcement powers started the same day. |
| The UK regulator | 30 September 2026 | The Information Commission replaces the ICO and takes over its functions. |
| EU AI Act, high-risk systems (Annex III) | 2 December 2027 | Moved back from August 2026 by the Digital Omnibus on AI, Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, in force since 27 July 2026. |
| EU AI Act, high-risk AI in regulated products (Annex I) | 2 August 2028 | The same Omnibus moved this back a year. |
This is general information, not legal advice. Sources: Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, section 80 (opens in a new tab); Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (opens in a new tab); the European Commission on AI Act enforcement (opens in a new tab); SI 2026/1015 (opens in a new tab).
How an AI consultancy engagement runs
After the first call, each stage is priced in writing before it starts and ends in something you keep, so you can stop after any of them or take the documents to another supplier.
| Stage | How long | What you get | Who does it |
|---|---|---|---|
| First call | 30 minutes, free | Whether there is anything worth doing, and a fixed quote for the first step if there is | A senior engineer |
| AI readiness assessment | One to two weeks | A scored assessment and a ranked shortlist: build, buy or leave alone, and in what order | A senior engineer, with your staff |
| Specification sprint | One to two weeks | A written specification for the chosen use: scope, architecture, pass mark, estimate and risks | Senior engineers |
| Pilot | Fixed in the specification, with an end date | A working version on your data, tested against real cases, and a written go or no-go | Senior engineers, with your users |
| Production build | 6 to 12 weeks for a focused MVP; about 14 weeks' core build for a platform like BlueWave or Karu | The feature in daily use, with its checks, cost monitoring and handover documents | Senior engineers, then your team or ours |
Between them, the engineers who run these stages have more than two decades of production software experience.
How much does AI consultancy cost in the UK?
The four first steps have published fees.
| Specification sprint | £4,500 for one week on a single workflow, or £8,500 for two weeks on a platform |
|---|---|
| AI readiness assessment | From £4,950, over one to two weeks |
| AI-built app audit | £3,500, fixed, for about a week |
| Technical due diligence for startups | From £6,500, over one to two weeks |
Where a fee starts from a figure, the final one depends on how much ground the question covers, so a review of one department costs less than one of the whole business. You get the exact figure in writing after the first call, fixed before the work starts. Longer work, such as a pilot or fractional leadership, is quoted in writing the same way, and any change of scope is agreed before the work changes.
We would rather build, obviously. That is why the advisory fee is settled up front, whatever the report ends up recommending, and why the report is written so that anyone could price the build from it.
If the answer is to build, a single-workflow product built to production standard typically costs £35,000 to £80,000 over 6 to 12 weeks. Our build bands cover larger shapes, and every case study publishes the band for its own.
AI consultant or AI development agency: which do you need?
Which kind of help fits depends on what you already know. This is how we would judge it on a first call, including the cases where you need neither.
| If this sounds like you | What we would tell you | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Staff already use AI tools, mostly to write and summarise | Neither. Buy business licences, and brief people on a short use policy. | It saves time but will not set you apart: every competitor can buy the same seats. |
| You suspect AI could help, but not where or what it would be worth | Consultancy, starting with an AI readiness assessment. | You spend money before anything changes, and a shortlist nobody owns changes nothing. |
| You know the use, the data exists and someone owns the outcome | A build partner, working from a written specification. | The specification adds one to two weeks before any code. That is cheap next to building the wrong thing. |
| The process is broken, or the data is not being collected yet | Wait. Fix the process, or start collecting the data, first. | Waiting has a cost too: your staff will use AI anyway, with or without a policy. |
| An investor, buyer or regulator is asking hard questions | Consultancy: tech due diligence or a governance review. | A report finds problems. Fixing them is separate work, by us or by anyone else. |
Evidence from production
We advise from platforms we built and still work on. Two run AI in production, one was designed for AI we have deliberately not shipped, and one has an AI roadmap ordered by what pays first.
A B2B logistics marketplace: read the case study
Its assistant routes each visitor to a specialist agent, and one of six grounding guards strips any result the model presents without a matching tool call, so it cannot invent a warehouse. A classifier vets every listing before it goes live, and A/B tests and an evaluation rig decide which model answers.
Five LLM surfaces in production, with an evaluation rig
NForge: read the case study
This coaching platform generates training and nutrition programmes in four model calls, then checks each against around thirty validation gates, allergen derivatives and injury contraindications among them. A plan that cannot be repaired goes to human review instead of shipping. The model in use won a bake-off on results and cost.
1,258 backend tests, and the cost of every generation logged
Karu: read the case study
Clinical notes are stored as structured sections, so a drafting model could propose them section by section and write only to an unfinalised draft that a clinician signs. We have not shipped that layer. Its rules were written before the feature: UK or EU inference, no training on client data, a DPIA first, and AI switched off by default.
Hosted in London, with clinical notes kept out of the search index
BlueWave: read the case study
Every record in this water-hygiene compliance platform is typed, versioned and audit-trailed, so anything a model produces can be checked before it is stored. The AI roadmap runs in the order the economics support: map a contractor's old forms, read lab reports as they arrive, check readings at capture, then answer an auditor's questions with cited records.
More than 1,000 automated tests and 10 architecture decision records
Who this is for, and who it isn't
Who we work with
- Owners, operations leads and finance directors at UK companies of roughly 10 to 250 people
- Funded founders, pre-seed to Series A, whose product has to survive real users and technical due diligence
- Regulated and field-heavy businesses: compliance, health, anything with records someone will audit
- Founders whose AI-built prototype now handles money, health data or customer records
- Investors and acquirers who want an engineer's read on a product, including its AI-written code
Look elsewhere for
- A slide deck for the board, with no plan to act on it
- A Big Four name on the report
- Legal advice: that needs a solicitor, and we are glad to work alongside one
- Training for hundreds of staff at once, which a specialist trainer will do better
- A large team from the first week: we are a small senior team
Questions about AI consultancy
What does an AI consultant do for a small business?
A good one finds where AI would save your business time or money, and where it would not, then helps you act on it, usually by proving one use on your own data first. Sometimes the right advice is a business licence and a two-page policy, which costs far less than a project.
How much does an AI consultant cost in the UK?
Our AI readiness assessment starts at £4,950 and technical due diligence at £6,500, excluding VAT, and each takes one to two weeks. The exact fee is fixed in writing before we start. If you then build, a single-workflow product built to production standard typically costs £35,000 to £80,000 over 6 to 12 weeks.
What is an AI readiness assessment, and what does it cost?
A review of where AI would pay in your business, over one to two weeks. We interview the people doing the work, look through your data and rank each candidate use: build it, buy it or leave it alone. Ours starts at £4,950, excluding VAT; the exact fee is agreed in writing before we begin, and the report is yours.
Is AI only for big businesses?
No. Size matters less than having a use for it. In DSIT's survey of UK businesses (opens in a new tab), published in January 2026, the most common barrier to adopting AI was having no identified use (71%), with cost well behind at 23%. A small firm can start with business licences and a short use policy, and build only where a use pays for itself.
Does the EU AI Act apply to UK companies?
It can. The Act applies where an AI system is placed on the EU market or its output is used in the EU, so a UK company can be caught with no office there. Your duties then depend on your role, provider or deployer, and on the system's risk tier. The EU AI Act for UK companies sets out the tests.
Do we need an AI consultancy or an AI development agency?
If you know what to build and the data exists, you need a builder. If you cannot yet say where AI would pay, you need advice first. We do both, and we fix the advisory fee before anyone knows what we will recommend.
We already paid for an AI strategy that went nowhere. What now?
Send it to us. We test each idea in it for an owner who wants it and data that exists today. Ideas that pass become a specification with a pass mark and a price. The rest we tell you to drop, in writing, with the reason.
Is AI safe and compliant for a regulated business?
It can be, if the rules shape the design from the start: a lawful basis, a DPIA where the risk is high, UK or EU hosting, no training on your data, and a person who can overturn a significant automated decision. Karu, a practice platform we built for UK therapists, was designed that way.
How quickly will we see results?
The written assessment arrives within one to two weeks. If it recommends building, a focused MVP takes 6 to 12 weeks, and platforms the size of BlueWave or Karu had a core build of about 14 weeks. Moving staff onto business licences under a policy can happen straight away.
Tell us what you're deciding.
Tell us where you think AI might fit and what data you already hold. On a 30-minute call we'll tell you what we would do first, even if the answer turns out not to involve AI.
What happens after you get in touch
We reply within one working day
By email, to arrange a time for the call.
A free 30-minute call
With a senior engineer, not a salesperson, about what you are building or deciding.
The fee in writing first
If a first step is worth taking, you get its exact fee in writing before any work starts.