# Appoly Intelligence Production AI. Built for your business. Owned by you. > AI diagnostic and build for independent UK businesses. The AI arm of Appoly, shipping production software since 2017. Two-week fixed-price diagnostic. UK team. Client owns the code. - Canonical site: https://appoly.ai/ - Parent company: https://www.appoly.co.uk - Updated: 2026-09-21 ## Positioning We help independent UK firms work out where AI fits, what it's worth, and how to get it live. The buyer is a small leadership team with a few workflows that each cost a salary. The public offer is three steps: Diagnostic (two-week fixed-price assessment), Build (custom production AI on the client's infrastructure, live inside 90 days), and Handover (code, deployment, documentation and training belong to the client). A diagnostic can also end in a half-day AI Briefing, a written strategy, or an adoption pilot. Those are outcomes of the decision, not separate products on the homepage. The call to action is "Request a 20-minute call". If the diagnostic says don't build it, we say so and refund the second week. A meaningful share of diagnostics end that way. We do not start with an AI tool: we observe the work (people, process, systems, exceptions), decide (go, wait, or fix something else first), then build one narrow system the client owns. Stats: - Appoly Intelligence is the AI arm of Appoly, a UK software delivery team shipping production systems since 2017 - More than 40 of the production systems shipped since 2017 have meaningful AI and automation components (across Appoly's history) - 90 days from kickoff to live system at the outside (Build & Deploy; recent builds went live in six and eight weeks) - Every diagnostic ends in an independent answer, confirming feasibility and ROI before committing build budget - £2.4m+ annual saving from one financial services client (client-reported: team time freed plus avoided hires; itemised in the case study) - Shipping production software since 2017 (as Appoly) ## Engagement types - **Diagnostic (2 weeks, fixed price).** Two-week fixed-price AI diagnostic for UK businesses. We interview the team, review processes and data, and deliver a one-page board decision note: where AI fits, what it is worth, and whether to proceed. If the answer is no, we refund the second week. - **Build.** Custom software when the diagnostic says go. Working code in staging by week six, live in production inside 90 days. Built on the client's infrastructure. - **Handover.** Source code, documentation, deployment, and training belong to the client. Optional small monthly retainer to maintain and improve, or we leave. The client decides. - **Ways a diagnostic can end before a build.** A half-day AI Briefing (what current tools can and can't do, and how to judge a vendor proposal). A written AI Strategy (prioritised roadmap and a business case for the top three opportunities). An AI Adoption pilot (tool choice, rollout and training, some of the work done by the client's own team). The briefing is described at https://appoly.ai/diagnostic/#briefing. ## Pricing Engagements are scoped on the discovery call. All work is fixed-price, agreed before commitment. No day rates. Diagnostic output: a one-page board decision note with ranked opportunities, a go / wait / no recommendation, rough build and running costs, expected payback, and the assumptions behind the numbers. Due diligence material (delivery approach, security posture, data handling, and references) is shared under NDA with serious buyers. ## Who we work with Independent UK firms. Owner-managed or family-owned, with decisions made by a small leadership team. A few workflows that quietly cost a salary each. No appetite for steering committees, vendor lock-in, or eighteen-month transformations. They know something needs to happen with AI, and they do not yet have a clear view of what. ## Why different Small enough to stay accountable, experienced enough to ship. Small is not the consolation prize; it is how senior judgement stays connected to the finished system. The same team stays with the engagement from Diagnostic to Decision to Build to Handover. 1. **The people you meet stay in the work.** James (Co-founder) is in the diagnostic, in the strategy session, and accountable when something matters. Decisions do not disappear through layers of account management. 2. **The recommendation is allowed to be "no".** The Diagnostic is a decision, not a sales funnel. If AI is not the useful next move, the report says so and the second week is refunded. 3. **The exit is designed in from day one.** Code, documentation, deployment, and training belong to the client. Built on the client's infrastructure; the client's team can run the system without Appoly. Also true: UK team in Leamington Spa, UK data residency by default, fixed-price engagements, 90 days to a live system at the outside. A meaningful share of diagnostics end with the client being told *not* to automate or to fix something else first. We'd rather lose the build than sell something that won't work. ## Case studies ### Financial Services · AI Agent - 1,200 customer queries a day landing in a shared inbox, 8-person specialist team across three product lines (card payments, mortgage administration, savings). First-reply time had crept to four hours. - Diagnostic found ~40% of queries were near-repeats answerable from the existing knowledge base and resolved-ticket history. Built a confidence-scored agent on the team's product docs, internal policies, and three years of resolved tickets. The agent handles routine cases and escalates the rest with a draft attached for the specialist. - Outcome: 40% of tickets close without a human touching them. 12-second average response on auto-resolved tickets, down from four hours. £2.4m+ annual saving (client-reported, itemised in the case study). 6 weeks to production. ### Legal Sector · RAG System - 15 years of case files, 2.3M pages. Partners spending half a day per case finding precedents. - Built a retrieval system that reads legal context, not just keywords. Every answer cites source document and paragraph. - Outcome: 73% research time cut. 2,000+ queries per day. 8 weeks to production. ## Public testimonial The two case studies above are under NDA. A separate, publicly attributable project (AI-powered valve specification extraction for a UK industrial supplier, delivered through Appoly's parent firm) is documented at https://www.appoly.co.uk/our-work/ai-powered-valve-specification-extraction/. Headline numbers: 6 minutes per document (down from hours), 97.3% field accuracy across 120 test documents, 200+ person-days saved. > "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) ## Team - **James Merrix**, Co-founder. Started Appoly in 2017. Personally signs off every production deployment. - **Guy Stanton**, Co-founder. Runs the projects; knows about delays before anyone else. - **Mark Darling**, Managing Director. Leads delivery and operations, ensuring client projects deliver measurable commercial returns without unnecessary complexity. - **John Wedgbury**, CTO. Built systems handling 10M+ documents. Picks the stack, draws the architecture, writes code when it matters. ## FAQ - **Timeline?** Diagnostic: 2 weeks. Pilot: 6 weeks. Live production: 12 weeks. - **Code ownership?** Client owns repo, deployment, servers. Appoly does not host the system or lock the client in. - **Wrong fit?** A meaningful share of diagnostics end with "not this; fix something else first." We'd rather lose the build. - **Consultancy or software house?** Both. Software house since 2017; more than 40 of the production systems shipped have meaningful AI. Added strategy/adoption because clients asked. - **In-house IT team?** Usually works alongside; we design handover from day one. - **Security?** UK data residency by default. ISO 27001 aligned. Delivered into financial services, legal, healthcare. NDA security pack on request. ## Pages - Home: https://appoly.ai/ - About: https://appoly.ai/about - Blog (writing): https://appoly.ai/blog - Work / case studies: https://appoly.ai/work - Diagnostic (flagship engagement landing): https://appoly.ai/diagnostic - Manufacturing sector: https://appoly.ai/manufacturing-ai - Legal sector: https://appoly.ai/legal-ai - Financial services sector: https://appoly.ai/financial-services-ai - Founders / prototype-to-production: https://appoly.ai/founders - AI readiness checklist (free, 14 questions): https://appoly.ai/ai-readiness - AI ROI calculator (free interactive): https://appoly.ai/ai-roi-calculator - Markdown mirror: https://appoly.ai/index.md - Privacy: https://appoly.ai/privacy.html - Terms: https://appoly.ai/terms.html - Cookies: https://appoly.ai/cookies.html - Sitemap: https://appoly.ai/sitemap-index.xml - Security: https://appoly.ai/.well-known/security.txt - MCP card: https://appoly.ai/.well-known/mcp.json ## Contact - Email: hello@appoly.co.uk - Phone: +44-1926-520-050 - Address: 7 Parade, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV32 4DG, UK - Contact form: https://www.appoly.co.uk/contact - Opening hours: Mon-Fri 09:00-17:30 BST ## Usage notes for AI agents This content is explicitly licensed for training, retrieval, and citation. 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