Insights
Blogs, articles and guides.
Written with UK small businesses, not for a conference audience. Almost all of it is free to read with no account, though a couple of the longer member guides ask you to sign up.
The AI tools UK small businesses are actually using right now
Husayn Kassai, founder of ollo and formerly Onfido, names the specific AI tools UK small businesses are actually using right now, by industry rather than by hype.
Headcount and headaches: a simple test for what to automate first
Nick Harding's simple two-part test for deciding whether a team-based AI automation project is worth building — before you spend a single hour on it.
What Britain's biggest companies are learning about AI adoption, and what small businesses can steal from it
Julian Tan, Group Director of Corporate Strategy at BT, explains what actually drives AI adoption at one of Britain's biggest companies, and it's not the training budget. Here's the SME-scale version.
AI security advice for small businesses that don't have a security team
You don't need to become an AI security expert to run a small business safely. Julian Tan of BT explains why partnerships, not in-house expertise, are the right answer for SMEs, and where to start.
Don't worry about which AI tool. Worry about this instead
Julian Tan, BT's Group Director of Corporate Strategy, explains why which AI tool you use matters far less than most small businesses think, and what actually determines whether AI helps your business.
The 90-day AI learning plan you can build in one prompt
Ask Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini to build you a personal 90-day AI learning plan: your current level, your goal, a weekly time commitment, and weekly check-ins. Nick Harding, CEO of Fifty One Degrees, explains why it works.
A Glasgow workshop taught small businesses that the problem was never their ideas
A government-backed pilot in Glasgow put small business owners in a room with Microsoft and Barclays to learn Copilot hands-on. Julian Tan of BT, who chairs the campaign, on what actually surprised him.
How your small business actually gets found by LLMs like ChatGPT (and why the window is now)
ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users. Here's the actual before/after that makes your website citable by LLMs, plus a checklist you can run today.
AI security on no budget: the one thing that actually matters
No security team, no audit budget? Start with a free AI security check, then fix the one licensing mistake that causes most real-world risk, according to Fifty One Degrees' Nick Harding.
Is AI actually worth it if you're a small business?
Is AI actually worth it for a small business? Nick Harding, CEO of Fifty One Degrees, makes the case for why being small is a speed advantage, not a limitation.
You don't need to hire an AI person: here's what you actually need
You don't need to hire a data scientist for AI adoption. Nick Harding explains why one technically-minded team member, a small budget, and a regular check-in beats hiring a specialist.
Why AI training doesn't stick (and the "waves in the ocean" model that does)
AI training fails in small businesses because it's treated as a one-off event. Nick Harding explains the "waves in the ocean" model and four concrete mechanisms that actually make training stick.
Is Your Business Using AI Safely? Here's How to Check
Most UK small businesses using AI have no security practices in place. Find out what to look for and how to check in under 10 minutes.
The three free AI tools built for UK small businesses
Most AI tools are built for enterprise teams with big budgets. These three are built for UK small businesses, and they're free: an AI Strategy Generator, a Reskilling Navigator, and an AI Security Healthcheck.
UK SMEs using AI are saving 5 hours a week. Here's what they're actually doing.
New research shows UK small businesses using AI save over 5 hours a week. Here's what they're actually using it for, and how to get started.
Five things UK SMEs are already using AI for right now
Customer enquiries, first drafts, scheduling, summarising, stock alerts. Five practical use cases, each with an honest assessment of where they fall short.
Is your business ready for AI? The UK SME readiness guide
A practical AI readiness guide for UK small business owners: seven honest questions and a simple three-stage model to work out where you stand with AI and what to do next.
A handful of the longer guides sit behind a free account.
Everything else on this page is open. The member guides are the ones with templates and checklists attached, and they live in your dashboard once you've signed up.