Why we're a business consultancy led by AI, not an AI consultancy
Why we're a business consultancy led by AI, not an AI consultancy
When we started the company 3 months ago it would have been easy to call this an AI consultancy and leave it there. We didn't, and it's worth explaining why.
Everyone and their dog is starting an AI consultancy at the moment. Most of it is the same handful of people who discovered ChatGPT eighteen months ago, repackaging enthusiasm as expertise. We're convinced we're different.
I've has spent over twenty years in project management and technical delivery, most of it in broadcast and IP video technology, working with some of the biggest names in entertainment and media. "It didn't work" was never an acceptable answer in that world, and that discipline doesn't disappear just because the tools changed. On top of that: two years actually deploying AI inside a live operations environment, not experimenting with it on the side, building tools that real teams used every day, not pilot projects that quietly died.
That's the difference between "we've read about AI" and "we've shipped it, under pressure, for people who'd have noticed if it broke." Twenty-plus years of knowing what good delivery looks like, plus real history actually deploying AI, not just talking about it.
AI on its own doesn't fix anything. Hand a business owner a clever tool and no training, and it sits unused. Get the tool right but leave the surrounding tech stack unmanaged, and the value leaks out somewhere else. AI is nothing without proper training and real adoption behind it.
That's why Barely Artificial isn't one thing, it's three arms that intertwine on purpose. Consultancy finds where AI genuinely helps and builds it. Training makes sure the people actually using it are confident, not avoiding it out of nerves. Services keeps the wider tech stack managed, so the AI work doesn't quietly rot because nobody owns what's around it. Most clients start with one arm. Plenty end up needing all three, because that's genuinely how the work holds together.
That structure only works if someone's actually paying attention to which arm a conversation needs, which is exactly what Steve does. He's usually the first person a new client talks to, and his job is making sure a problem lands with the right arm, or telling someone honestly that it's not a fit for any of them. Twenty-plus years of delivery experience means nothing if the person answering the phone doesn't know where to point it.
We're a business consultancy, made sharper by AI, not an AI consultancy hoping the "business" part sorts itself out. That's not a rebrand. It's just us being honest about which part of this actually earns its place.
If this is relevant to what you're dealing with, get in touch, or have a look at what else we've written.