Understand AI.
Find the useful work.
Make it happen.

Steve Hooper

Independent AI consultant and educator for UK SMEs. I help you understand the tools, choose work worth doing and put useful automation into practice.

I explain the options, help you weigh up the costs and do the practical work with you.

Book a strategy call Explore a worked example

60-minute strategy call from £450.
West Midlands, working UK-wide.

Learn how to use AI
with your team.

In their own words: feedback on ChatGPT and AI productivity sessions.

Explore team training

“Steve ran a training for my coaching group on Chat GPT. His knowledge and enthusiasm was brilliant and he shared his vast knowledge generously.”

Joanna LottChatGPT training for a coaching groupLinkedIn recommendation

“Steve ran a recent session for business owners on using AI to improve productivity - specifically ChatGPT. It was an excellent training session - very engaging and inspiring.”

Sally DhillonAI productivity training for business ownersLinkedIn recommendation

What would AI actually do here?

Take one everyday task: handling an incoming enquiry. Explore how useful assistance changes when the message is clear, incomplete or asks the system to do something it shouldn’t.

Illustrative walkthrough · fixed sample messages and responses. No live AI call, client data or automatic sending.

Choose an enquiry to inspectClear enquiryMissing contextInstruction in an enquiry

The incoming message

We run a 25-person consultancy. Our team copies website enquiries into the CRM and drafts every reply. Can you help us reduce the admin?

What we know

Team: 25 people
Workflow: website enquiries → CRM → reply
Problem: repeated manual administration

Enquiry volume, current time spent, CRM and available budget are unknown.

Prepare a reply for review

Suggested reply · not sent

Thanks for explaining the workflow. Before recommending a build, it would help to understand your CRM, monthly enquiry volume and the time each enquiry takes. Could you share those details?

The human checkpoint

A person checks the extracted facts, adjusts the reply and decides whether to send it.

The useful part is the whole workflow: clear inputs, a limited task, explicit uncertainty and a person accountable for the result.

Discuss an automation for your business

The business question comes first.

My starting point is the work: what happens today, where people lose time and what a better result would look like. The technology follows that decision.

Meet Steve and his approach

Understand before you buy.: Give people enough knowledge to ask better questions, judge output and recognise the limits.
Build around the real task.: Choose a specific problem. Sometimes a checklist or a simple rule is the right answer.
Keep ownership clear.: Agree who checks the result, handles exceptions and looks after the workflow once it is running.

Before you commit,
get a clearer picture.

Practical guides to the decisions behind an AI project: scope, costs, priorities and the questions worth asking.

Read all guides

How much does AI consulting cost for a UK SME?

A practical guide to Steve Hooper’s fees, the scope behind each offer and the costs to include in your business case.

By Steve Hooper

How to choose your first AI automation project

Use volume, review effort, data quality and ownership to choose a manageable first workflow. Includes a simple worked example.

By Steve Hooper

Inside a two-week AI readiness audit

Choose the help you need.

Start where your business needs help. Every engagement begins with a paid strategy call to understand the task and agree a sensible next step.

Give your team practical AI skills

Hands-on workshops built around the tasks your people actually do.

Half / full day · from £2,500 per workshop

Decide where AI is worth using

A focused audit to identify opportunities, weigh the costs and set priorities.

Two weeks · from £6,500

Put a useful workflow into practice

Implementation, integration, testing and handover for a defined business problem.

4–12 weeks · from £12,000

Need someone alongside the leadership team?

Fractional AI leadership provides ongoing direction, vendor review and oversight. One to two days a week, with a three-month minimum. From £4,000 per month.

Explore fractional leadership

What is that repetitive task costing you?

Put a first number against an automation idea. Change the illustrative assumptions to see whether it deserves a closer look.

This estimates the value of staff capacity, not guaranteed cash savings or revenue. Allow for human review, adoption and maintenance when choosing your assumptions. Uses 52 working weeks a year; reduce the weekly hours to allow for holidays or seasonal work.

Turn an estimate into a costed business case

Team hours spent each week

Cost per team hour (£)

Time you expect to reclaim (%)

Monthly running cost (£)

One-off project cost (£)

Annual capacity after running costs: £17,000
Capacity-based payback estimate: 9 months

Illustrative calculation. No email required. Values are calculated here and are not submitted.

Explore your particular challenge.

More detail on the audience, systems and implementation decisions behind the work.

Let’s find the useful work.

Bring a business problem, a workflow or a question. A paid 60-minute strategy call starts from £450 and gives us a focused way to decide what should happen next.

Book a strategy call Ask a question first

Understand AI.Find the useful work.Make it happen.

Learn how to use AIwith your team.