Appoly Intelligence

AI strategy and adoption for UK businesses.

We help independent UK companies work out where AI fits, what it's worth, and how to get it live. From a one-page board paper to a working system in your hands.

Two-week diagnostic. Fixed price. UK team.

Or start with a half-day briefing for your leadership team.

Start with a diagnostic

Twenty minutes. We'll tell you if it's worth doing.

Track record

Every diagnostic ends in a straight answer. More often than you’d expect, it’s “not this; fix something else first.”

40+ of the production systems we've shipped since 2017 have meaningful AI components.

90 days from kickoff to a live system, at the outside. Recent builds went live in six and eight weeks.

What we do

Most clients start with the diagnostic.

If you're not ready for that yet, or you've already done it, four other ways to work with us are below.

Diagnostic

Two weeks, fixed price. We come in, talk to your people, look at your processes, and write you a short report with a one-page decision note on top. Where AI would help, where it wouldn't, and what the numbers look like. If there's nothing here worth doing, we say so and refund the second week.

You get: A prioritised opportunity list, a go / wait / no recommendation on the top three, and a written rationale you can take to a board.

Talk about a diagnostic

Diagnostic report

Board decision note

Week 2
Fixed price

Top three, triaged

Go · Wait · No

Cost model

Build + run

Payback

Assumptions listed

Impact High
Feasibility Medium
Data readiness Known gaps

Evidence

Interviews, systems walk-through, process map, and data checks behind every recommendation.

Decision

Take the report and stop, brief the board, or ask us for a separate fixed-price build quote.

One page your board can act on.

Or one of these

  • AI Briefing

    You can see AI is going to matter, but every vendor pitch contradicts the last and half of them sound exaggerated. Your team is asking what to make of it. We spend a half-day with your leadership team, walk you through what the tools can and can't actually do today, and answer the specific questions about your business.

    You get: A clear-headed view of what's actually possible right now, which tools are relevant for your business, and the vocabulary to evaluate any vendor proposal that lands in your inbox.

  • AI Strategy

    Where does AI fit in your business? What's it worth? What's the risk? We sit with your leadership team for two weeks, look at how your business actually runs, and give you back a board-ready plan. A document you can act on.

    You get: A prioritised AI roadmap, a business case for the top three opportunities, and a recommendation on what to do first.

  • AI Adoption

    You know roughly what you want to do. You need someone to make it happen. We run the pilot, choose the tools, manage the rollout, train your team, and stay close until it sticks. Some of the work we do. Some of it your team does, with us alongside.

    You get: A working pilot, a tested rollout plan, and your people knowing how to run it.

  • Build & Deploy

    When the right answer is custom software, we build it ourselves. Real engineering, not a wrapper around someone else's API. Ninety days from kickoff to a system you own outright.

    You get: Production software, full source code, documentation, and your team trained to run it.

Who we work with

Independent UK businesses, from SMEs to enterprise.

You run the company. Or you're on the board. You know AI is going to matter and you want to do something about it without betting the business on a six-figure consulting engagement.

You probably look something like this:

  • Owner-managed, family-owned, or a division with its own P&L, with decisions made by a small leadership team.

  • Three or four processes that quietly cost you a salary each.

  • A team that's stretched, not a department of analysts waiting for work.

  • No appetite for endless committees, vendor lock-in, or eighteen-month transformations.

  • A sense that something needs to happen with AI, without a clear view of what.

If that's roughly you, we're built for you.

Start with a diagnostic

Built around what your business actually needs.

Most engagements follow the same shape. Diagnosis first, then a decision on what to do, then delivery. You can stop at any point.

  1. 1

    Two weeks. Fixed price.

    Diagnostic

    The diagnostic described above kicks everything off. If it turns up nothing worth doing, you take the report and stop here. Phase 2 never happens.

  2. 2

    Two to six weeks, depending on the route.

    Strategy or Pilot

    If the diagnostic says go, this is where we choose the first thing to do and prove it works. Could be a board-level strategy document. Could be a working pilot on a single process. Depends on what your business needs first.

    You get: a tested approach, with evidence

  3. 3

    90 days, worst case.

    Build & Deploy

    When the answer is to build something, we build it. Working software in staging by week six. Live in production inside 90 days. Your code, your servers, your system from day one.

    You get: a live system, full handover, your team trained

  4. 4

    Your call.

    Run or Step Away

    Some clients keep us on a small monthly retainer to maintain and improve the system. Others take it in-house from day one. We're not building a recurring revenue trap. You decide.

Start with a diagnostic

Smaller. On purpose.

There are good consultancies you can hire to do this work. Most of them are too big to take you on, too expensive, or both. Here's how we work.

You talk to the MD.

Direct line to the person accountable. Not an account manager three layers down. James is in the diagnostic, in the strategy session, and on the phone when something matters.

Fixed-price diagnostic.

Two weeks, agreed price, written report at the end. Not an open-ended scoping engagement that turns into a six-month strategy engagement that turns into a seven-figure transformation programme.

90 days to live, not 9 months to a steering committee.

Scope locked at the start. Price locked at the start. Live software when we're done. No phase 2 mysteriously appearing in month four.

UK team. UK data. UK working hours.

Real engineers based in Leamington Spa. Your data stays in the UK. You get people on the phone in your timezone.

You own everything.

Code, documentation, deployment, training. All yours from the day we ship. We don't host it on our infrastructure, we don't wrap someone else's API in a SaaS subscription, and we don't hold your system hostage.

Client quote

In their words

“We used to dread spec sheets. A senior engineer would spend half their morning on data entry before they could even start quoting. Now the system handles it in minutes and we barely think about it.”

Senior Engineer, UK valve supplier · Read the project ↗

Work

Built, shipped,
still running.

Two recent projects. Both live. Both under NDA, so no names.

Financial Services · AI Agent

40%

Auto-resolved

12 sec

Response time

6 wks

To production

1,200 tickets a day triaged and routed by an 8-person team. Customers waiting four hours for a first reply.

The diagnostic identified support as the highest-volume bottleneck. We built an agent on the team's product docs, internal policies, and three years of resolved tickets. It handles the routine ones and escalates the rest with a draft attached.

40% of tickets close without a human touching them. First reply: four hours down to twelve seconds. Six weeks from kickoff to production. The saving behind those numbers is itemised in the full case study.

Read the full case study →

Legal Sector · Retrieval System

2,000+

Queries per day

2.3m

Pages indexed

8 wks

To production

Fifteen years of case files. 2.3 million pages. Partners spending half a day per case finding the right precedents.

We built a retrieval system that reads legal context, not just keywords. Every answer cites the source document and paragraph.

Now handles 2,000+ queries a day across the firm's fee earners. Precedent search went from hours to about 3 seconds.

Read the full case study →

Need deeper proof?

If you're seriously considering working with us, we'll share our delivery approach, security posture, and client references under NDA.

Request the pack →
View all work →

The team.

We've been building software together since 2017. AI is what we do now.

  • James Merrix, Managing Director of Appoly Intelligence

    James Merrix

    Managing Director

    Started Appoly in 2017. Has personally signed off on every production deployment since. Worries about the things that break at 2am.

  • Guy Stanton, Operations Director of Appoly Intelligence

    Guy Stanton

    Operations Director

    Runs the projects. If something's going to be late, Guy knows about it before anyone else does.

  • John Wedgbury, CTO of Appoly Intelligence

    John Wedgbury

    CTO

    Built the systems that handle 10 million+ documents. Picks the stack, draws the architecture, and writes code when it matters.

Straight answers.

Timelines, ownership, and what we do when AI isn't the right fix.

How long until we see something?

Two weeks for the diagnostic. Six weeks from pilot kickoff to a working pilot. 90 days from build kickoff to a live production system. If we can't hit those, we'll tell you upfront.

Do we own the code?

Yes. All of it. Your repository, your deployment, your servers. We don't host your system and we don't lock you into our tooling.

What if AI isn't the right answer?

We tell you. The diagnostic is designed to catch this. A meaningful share of diagnostics end with us recommending the client not automate, or fix something else first. We'd rather lose the build than sell you something that won't work.

Are you a consultancy or a software house?

Both. We started as a software house in 2017, and more than 40 of the production systems we've shipped have meaningful AI components. We added the strategy and adoption work because clients were asking us to. The two halves work because we don't recommend things we couldn't build ourselves.

Can you work alongside our existing IT team?

Usually yes. Most of our engagements involve someone in-house who'll own the system after we leave. We design the handover from day one.

What about data protection and security?

UK data residency by default. ISO 27001 aligned. We've delivered into financial services, legal, and healthcare. We can share our security pack under NDA.

Twenty minutes. No deck.

A short call. We'll talk through what you're looking at, give you an honest read on whether AI fits, and tell you roughly what it would cost to find out properly.

Every engagement is fixed-price before you commit. No day rates.

Direct contact

01926 520 050 hello@appoly.co.uk
7 Parade, Leamington Spa, CV32 4DG

What happens next

  1. 1 We'll reply within one working day
  2. 2 Short call to understand your situation
  3. 3 Honest read on whether AI fits and what it would cost

No sales pressure. No follow-up sequence. One conversation, then it's your call.

Free resource

Not ready to talk? Take the checklist.

Fourteen questions to work through before your first AI project. Sent to your inbox. No follow-up unless you ask.

No spam. Unsubscribe any time. We do not share your email.

Start with a diagnostic →