About
How an engagement runs
Discovery call
30 minutes, no commitment
Scoping workshop
One structured day on your real processes
Written findings
Report, priorities and a clear order of action
Delivery
Fixed price, defined deliverables, governance built in
Handover
Documentation your team can run without us
Most organisations that contact us have tried AI before. A tool that nobody uses after the first month. A consultant who delivered a report nobody had time to act on. An implementation that worked in the demo and broke with real data on day one.
These are not unusual outcomes. 42% of UK companies abandoned most AI initiatives in 2025, up from 17% the year before (S&P Global, 2025). The RAND Corporation found that AI projects fail at more than twice the rate of traditional technology projects. When something goes wrong, governance was usually an afterthought, deliverables were never agreed up front, or the people using the tools were not prepared for them.
Read what follows, then decide whether to book a call.
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Abandoned most AI initiatives in 2025
S&P Global, 2025
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AI project failure rate vs. traditional tech
RAND Corporation
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UK leaders confident their workforce can use AI
DSIT, January 2026
Are we the right fit?
Who Insightful AI engagements are right for, and who they are not right for.
Right for you if
- You want working outputs, not a recommendations deck
- You want governance built in before anything goes live
- You want your team to own and maintain what gets built
- You need pricing that works for an SME, charity, or public body
- You want independent advice free of any vendor agenda
Not right for you if
- You need a result within two weeks of first contact
- You want tools deployed without compliance checks
- You need a managed service to keep things running after delivery
- You have an enterprise budget and need a brand-name agency to go with it
- You have already chosen a platform and need someone to install it
What we will not do
We do not receive commissions from technology vendors, maintain preferred supplier relationships, or push proprietary platforms. Our advice reflects what suits your organisation, your budget, and your risk profile. That is less common than it sounds. Many consultancies carry commercial agreements that shape their recommendations before they walk through your door.
Our co-founders Ben Sefton and Kane Lukassen lead a team with complementary skills across AI strategy and governance, AI Operations, and workflow implementation. Technology choices across every engagement are made on what the evidence supports, not on what earns a referral fee.
- Before100 units
- After20 units
How every engagement starts
Every engagement with Insightful AI starts with a scoping workshop. We do not begin implementation without first assessing your current AI position, regulatory exposure, and the tasks genuinely worth addressing. The workshop produces a written findings and recommendations report that belongs to you, whether or not you proceed to any further work with us.
The scoping workshop is a structured full day with your leadership team, on-site or remote, fixed at £1,500 ex VAT.
By the end of that day, three things are documented: where your organisation stands on AI readiness, what your obligations are under UK GDPR (UK General Data Protection Regulation) and the EU AI Act (which applies to any UK organisation whose AI outputs are used in the EU, or who serves EU customers), and which use cases have genuine value.
That report is yours to keep and act on independently. It includes our honest view, including where we recommend against proceeding. Boards, trustees, and regulators can draw on it directly as evidence of your assessed AI position.
Preview
The workshop scores three readiness pillars
People, process, and principles. Your findings report shows exactly where your organisation sits on each, and where the gaps are. Take the free assessment to see an indicative view before we speak.
Take the free assessment →The Insightful AI Adoption Roadmap
We guide organisations through six stages, from initial assessment through to sustained AI capability. Each stage produces defined deliverables and measurable outputs. Not every organisation needs all six, the scope of each engagement is set by what we find together in the first stage.
How an engagement starts
- Step 3Findings reportYours to keep
The six stages of the Adoption Roadmap
Stage 01: Assess and align
We evaluate your current AI readiness, leadership direction, and how your teams feel about AI. This goes beyond a readiness checklist. Cultural attitudes and leadership confidence shape whether AI adoption sticks or stalls. The findings and recommendations report from this stage sets the direction for everything that follows.
- Findings report
Stage 02: Build AI fluency
We equip your people with the skills and confidence to use AI safely and effectively before any tools go live. This stage addresses the single most common cause of failed implementations: deploying technology into a team that is not ready for it. Only 28% of business leaders feel their workforce can use AI properly (DSIT, January 2026). Every course we deliver is bespoke to your organisation's own tools, workflows, and data policies, and produces ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) compliant training evidence.
- Training evidence
Stage 03: Establish governance
We build the guardrails for ethical, compliant, and transparent AI use before the first deployment. Acceptable use policies, data management rules, risk assessment processes, and accountability mechanisms are in place before anything goes live. Every engagement begins with governance establishment or assessment, it is not added at the end after something goes wrong. For governance-focused buyers, our responsible AI page sets out the full principles behind this.
- Governance docs
Stage 04: Pilot and prove
We test high-value use cases and measure their impact through controlled pilots. Each pilot produces working outputs and documented evidence of what the technology can and cannot do in your specific environment. Organisations leave each pilot with something usable, not a list of further recommendations. Our AI at Work service is the clearest illustration of this in practice.
- Working tool
Stage 05: Scale and integrate
Pilots that prove their value are embedded across teams and workflows. This stage moves AI from a controlled test to an operational part of how your organisation works. We map integration points, support change management, and ensure oversight controls move with the deployment.
- Handover docs
Stage 06: Sustain and improve
AI adoption does not end at deployment. We establish review processes and governance updates that keep your use of AI compliant, effective, and aligned with how regulations and technology change. The EU AI Act's transparency obligations took effect on 2 August 2026, and its high-risk system requirements follow from 2 December 2027 under the EU's Digital Omnibus reforms. The regulatory environment will continue to move. Organisations that treat governance as a one-time task will find themselves exposed.
- Review cadence
Related reading: responsible AI adoption (stage 3) and our AI at Work service (stage 4).
What you will always receive
Every implementation project is fixed price with deliverables agreed before work starts. There are no open-ended retainers where scope is unclear, and nothing changes without written agreement.
Depending on the engagement, your organisation receives some or all of the following:
- A written AI readiness findings and recommendations report (from the scoping workshop)
- Governance documentation for every AI tool or workflow deployed, covering acceptable use, data handling, human oversight requirements, and accountability records
- ICO-compliant training evidence for every session delivered
- Handover documentation that enables your team to maintain what has been built without ongoing support from us
- Working tools, built and tested during the engagement, where the scope includes implementation
Frequently asked questions
Will we become dependent on Insightful AI to maintain what gets built?
No. We build capability into your team, not dependency on ours. Every deployment includes handover documentation, team training where applicable, and guidance for operating and maintaining what has been built. Our measure of success is an organisation that does not need us to run its own AI tools. If we have built something your team cannot maintain, we have not finished the job.
How do we know what we will actually get?
All implementation projects are fixed price with defined deliverables, scoped following the discovery workshop. You see and agree the full scope before work begins. Nothing changes mid-project without your written agreement. The findings report from the scoping workshop belongs to you and is written to stand on its own, regardless of whether you commission further work with us.
Are you set up to work with small organisations?
Yes. SMEs, charities, and public sector organisations are our primary clients. Our pricing reflects this. Scoping workshops are £1,500 ex VAT. Training for charities starts from £895 ex VAT. [Ben to confirm all pricing before publishing.] We do not charge enterprise rates for SME or charity work, and every engagement is scoped to what your organisation needs, not a standard package.
What if your assessment concludes AI is not the right priority for us yet?
We tell you. The scoping workshop is designed to produce an honest assessment, not generate further work for us. If your data needs attention first, your team is not ready, or a simpler tool would serve you better, your report will say so clearly. We would rather tell you that at the scoping stage than six months into an implementation.
How do you handle our data during an engagement?
We operate under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We do not use client data to train AI models, do not share it with third parties without explicit instruction, and sign data processing agreements before any work involving personal data. Organisations with specific data governance requirements can review our full approach on our security and data protection page.
Ready to see whether this works for you?
The first conversation is a free 30-minute discovery call. By the end of it, you will know whether a scoping workshop is the right starting point and what it would produce for your organisation. You can also browse the full range of our AI services before we speak.