Solutions / AI consultancy
Same method every time. Your outcome is your own.
Your team is already trying AI. We turn the experiments that work into something you can rely on, and we tell you which model to use and what to run it on. One method for every customer, from a two-person startup to a small enterprise. Five stages, a named consultant through all of them, AI doing the legwork at every step. What comes out the other end depends on your business, which is why we never promise it in advance.
The five stages
Listen, find, prove, harden, run.
47% of UK small businesses now use AI tools. 19% feel very confident with them. Source: Simply Business SME Insights Report 2026
01 · Listen
Typically 1 to 2 days
We sit with the owner and the team, map how work actually gets done, which AI tools are already in use and what data they touch.
You leave with: A plain English picture of where you stand.
02 · Find
Typically 1 to 2 days
We rank where AI would save time or cut risk, and say plainly what not to bother with. For each idea we recommend a model, a way to host it and a rough monthly cost.
You leave with: A short ranked list showing value, effort and cost.
03 · Prove
Typically 3 to 10 days
We build the top one or two ideas as working pilots on your real data, on the cheapest option that meets your data rules, and we measure real usage.
You leave with: Evidence of what works, before any big spend.
04 · Harden
Typically 2 to 5 days
We make what worked safe: access, data, privacy, audit trail. We write the infrastructure spec, decide hosted or self hosted on the measured numbers, settle where the data lives, and a named engineer signs it off.
You leave with: Something the business can rely on.
The same discipline as our assessments →05 · Run
Typically 1 day a month
We hand over to your team or to tecnov8 support, with a regular review. If you self host, we carry the monthly upkeep.
You leave with: Something you own, and one number to call.
Application support →
Priced by the day
From £1,000 a day
- ✓Every stage has an agreed cap on days.
- ✓You can stop after any stage.
- ✓Listen and Find together usually come to 2 to 4 days.
The rest of what we sell has a fixed price. This is sold by the day because the outcome belongs to you, so we cap the days instead of fixing the result.
Starts with Listen. A named consultant through all five stages.
AI consultancy · The technical track
Which model, and what to run it on.
Four decisions every business meets once the experiments start working. We make them with you, in plain English, on your own numbers.
01
Hosted API, self hosted, or a mix
For most small businesses a hosted API is the cheaper and simpler answer. Self hosting is worth it when privacy, control or a flat monthly budget matter more than price. We will tell you which, even when the answer is the cheap one.
02
Which model
Open weight models now rival proprietary ones for many jobs and can run on a single GPU. We pick by the job, the licence and the hardware you have, not by brand.
03
Where the data lives
UK data stays in the UK where you or your contracts need it. Hosted providers offer UK regions, and self hosting keeps it in your own rack.
04
What it runs on
We write the spec, from “pay per use API, nothing to buy” up to a GPU server for a team, sized to the usage we measured in Prove, not to a guess. The spec hands straight to DevOps.
Sometimes the answer is a £200 a month API. Sometimes it’s a server in your own rack. We’ll show you the numbers either way.
Why tecnov8
Safe with your customers’ data
Privacy, access and an audit trail are checked before anything goes live.
Senior engineers by the day
Capped days, agreed before each stage.
Independent of any model vendor
The right model for the job, whoever makes it, open or closed.
Sized to real numbers
Hosting decisions made on measured usage, not a sales deck.
We run what we recommend
tecnov8 supports systems around the clock, so we only recommend what we would stand behind.
The whole ecosystem
One journey, from the first agent to the desk that stands behind it.
The consultancy is where it starts. Every step after it is something we already do, so you move through one ecosystem with one team, not a chain of suppliers.
- 1
AI Agent Assessment
Know what your agents can reach, fix what matters, prove it. A scored, plain English assessment of the agents you are building or buying, signed by a named assessor.
- 2
Harden what you keep
AI hardening for the agents and prompts, software hardening for the apps around them. Same discipline, one score.
- 3
Optimise the workflow
The five stages above: find where AI saves time or cuts risk, prove it on your own data, and make it something the team relies on.
- 4
Install a turnkey solution
Where a ready product closes the gap, we install it on your own site and support it.
- 5
App Guardian stands behind it
Around the clock support for everything above, whoever built it, with one desk and one number.