AI strategy that starts with your staff, not a slide deck
I'm Michael, an AI consultant and AI trainer who has taught over 160,000 people online and in person. I help UK businesses find quick and safe AI wins, by working with the people closest to the work, the staff. Project success and ROI comes from staff adoption, not a top-down audit.
My background:
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Built and delivered live training for
organisations with 500+ employees across the UK, USA and Australia
Most AI rollouts die about six weeks after the workshop
It usually goes the same way. A strategy gets written at the top. A tool gets rolled out. There's a workshop. Everyone nods. And six weeks later people are quietly back to doing things the way they always did, because nobody ever asked them where the actual friction was.
The people who know where AI would genuinely help are the people doing the work. They're rarely the people in the room when the strategy gets written.
So I do it the other way round. Get your staff properly using the tools you're already paying for, safely and well enough to feel the difference. That alone recovers ROI you've bought but probably aren't seeing.
Then the ideas start arriving on their own, from the people doing the job day in, day out. You build from there, one project at a time.
Training and adoption first. Plan second.
How the programme works
Train your staff
Your team works through my AI courses at their own pace. I run one live kickoff session so they know why it matters and what to look for. No two-day offsite, no lost week. Most businesses are already paying for AI tools their staff aren't fully using. This is where you recover that ROI.
Harvest the ideas
Staff log where AI could help in their own job, into a central portal. A small monthly prize keeps it alive. Then I run a live workshop to pull the best ideas into the open. This is the audit, carried out by the people who already know where the time goes.
Build the plan
I rank the submissions by impact against effort and tell you which three to do first, what they're worth, and how to deliver them. I'll connect you with developers I trust and provide multiple quotes. No twelve-month transformation programme.
Why this is better than a traditional AI Audit & Strategy
- 1
You get value from what you're already paying for
Most firms buy Copilot or ChatGPT licences and use a fraction of them. Often the quickest return isn't new software — it's people who know what the software already does.
- 2
Safe use is built in from the start
The EU AI Act now expects organisations to make sure their people understand the tools they're using. Train first and you meet that duty and get your audit out of the same spend. Data protection and confidentiality are taught as habits, not added as a policy nobody reads.
- 3
The ideas keep coming after I've gone
A report starts going out of date the day it's written. This leaves you with trained people and a live suggestion process, so improvement carries on without me.
- 4
Your team wants the change
Strategy handed down from above gets nodded at and ignored. When the ideas came from your staff, adoption isn't something you have to force.
- 5
You find out who your AI champions are
Every organisation has a few people who take to this quickly and start helping everyone around them. You can't identify them from an org chart — they show up once the training starts. Find them and you have internal support in every team, long after the engagement ends.
- 6
More of your budget goes on judgement, not fact-finding
A traditional audit spends most of its fee on the slow part: weeks of interviews and shadowing to work out how you operate. Your staff already know that, so we skip it. My hours go where they're actually worth paying for: testing which ideas stand up, what they'd cost, and what order to do them in. A cheaper engagement that also leaves you with a trained workforce, named champions and a process that keeps running.
- 7
Your staff give you better answers than any auditor can get
An auditor spends a week learning your business badly. Your staff have spent years learning it properly. They also won't perform for a clipboard — people describe the process as it's written down, not the workaround they actually use. Training with an amnesty brings out what's really happening (most teams are already pasting work into free AI tools on personal accounts), so you get honest answers from people who actually know where the time goes.
- 8
Small steps, cheap mistakes
We prove the return on the first win before committing to the second. If something doesn't work, you've lost a fortnight, not a year.
Three ways to work with me
The AI Adoption Programme
The full sequence: training, harvest, plan.
- ·Relevant staff training for your team
- ·Idea portal set up, then my written plan: your top three opportunities ranked and costed
- ·Live harvest workshop to surface the best ideas
AI Advisory Calls
then £250 /hour
Not ready for a full programme? Bring me a question. Which tool, whether an idea is worth doing, what a supplier quote actually means, where to start.
No commitment, no scope, no proposal. Just an hour of someone who does this every day. Blocks of three available at £600.
Horizon Scanning Retainer
Introductory rate
£200/monthAfter working together I'll know your business, your staff, and how you operate, which means I'm uniquely placed to filter the noise and tell you what actually matters for you. A monthly call covering what's changed in AI and what's worth acting on. For businesses that don't want to be caught out.
All prices exclude VAT. Every engagement starts with a 20-minute call (no charge, no obligation).
What about the training?
For smaller teams I run a low disruption hybrid: staff work through my pre-recorded AI Foundations and AI Safety courses at their own pace, with a live kickoff session and a live harvest workshop run by me. No two-day offsite, no lost week.
Larger organisations are usually better served by a full training provider. I'll introduce you to the right one, and in most cases I deliver the programme myself as part of their setup. Either way, I'm the one running the idea harvest and building your plan.
Not every business needs the full programme. If all you want is your people trained (whether that's five of them or five hundred), tell me what you're after and I'll point you to the right option. No charge for the introduction.
I know AI, and I know how to explain it
Since 2018 I've been making AI accessible. First to the 160,000+ people who've taken my courses, and now to businesses who need their teams to understand it and use it day to day.
That number isn't a vanity metric. It's years of learning how to explain this material to people who didn't ask for a lecture and don't have time for one.
My background spans enterprise AI strategy, digital transformation and large-scale training delivery. I've worked with NHS England, advised directors and department heads on AI options, and managed the rollout of data science initiatives. I still work inside the training industry, which means I see what businesses ask for versus what they actually need, and where adoption quietly dies. That's a view most AI consultants don't have.
What clients and learners say
"Before working with Michael I didn't know much about AI, but after he came in I was genuinely inspired by what was possible. Within a week he'd built an internal AI helper that's already made training new staff easier and streamlined our admin without disrupting the team. We're now building an AI-enhanced quoting system that's forming the foundation for a complete overhaul of our back-office processes. Michael's approach is practical, step-by-step, and focused on real results. Each stage delivers value straight away, and the vision for where this is heading is transformational for our business."
"Mike is wonderful and helped me join the dots on how AI is used generally and how I could make best use of it. I was scribbling down loads of ideas regarding my current business and even had a few about some future projects too! I really appreciated our conversation, worth every penny. Fully recommend 👌"
"I recently had the pleasure of spending an hour with Mike for an introduction to AI and how it can be integrated into my day-to-day professional life. The session was incredibly insightful — Mike has a great way of breaking down complex concepts and making them accessible. We explored a real-life application of AI that directly addressed a recurring monthly task I deal with, and the potential time savings were immediately clear. One hour hardly felt like enough — this topic is vast and fascinating, and Mike sparked a genuine excitement in me to learn more. Highly recommended to anyone curious about using AI to work smarter."
"This has been an excellent course that exceeded my expectations in both breadth and practical value. Complex AI concepts are explained in a clear and easy-to-understand way. Highly recommended for professionals, managers, students, and anyone interested in understanding and applying AI in a productive and responsible way."
"This is the best basic AI course I have seen so far and I have done a number of similar courses."
"Awesome and detailed course. My AI knowledge is so much stronger now, just what I needed as I was feeling like I was lagging behind all the AI stuff."
Ready to have the conversation?
Whether you have five staff or five hundred, twenty minutes is usually enough to tell whether there's something here worth doing. You'll leave with at least two things you can act on, regardless of whether we work together.