AI Consultant Based in Cardiff
Helping South Wales small businesses work out where AI fits their operations and, where it makes sense, building it. Run by an SME owner who has already done this in his own business.
- Cardiff-based, available on-site across South Wales
- MSc Computing (Cardiff University) and 25 years running a Cardiff SME
- Free initial call. No pitch. No retainer until scope is agreed.
An SME owner, not an agency
Most AI consultants come from a technology background. This practice comes from a business one. Anthony Jones has run Vanda Coatings, a Cardiff commercial recoating business, since the management buyout in 2003. Clients include BAA, Canary Wharf, and Google.
The AI tools built for Vanda Coatings came out of the same problem most owner-managed businesses face: too much time spent on admin that should not require a person's attention. An in-house ERP system, automated job costing, document processing tools that saved five hours of staff time per week.
That is the background behind this consulting practice. Not theory. Not a case study from a client. It is operational experience from a Cardiff business that ran the same experiment you are considering.
About AnthonyRunning a Cardiff SME from MBO to today.
Cardiff University. Technical depth, not just strategy.
Saved in his own business before advising anyone else.
Management buyout. Cardiff-based continuously since then.
Cardiff and South Wales businesses feeling the pressure
The businesses that get the most from this work tend to look similar, regardless of sector.
You know AI is relevant but you don't know where to start
You've seen the headlines. You're being told to "get on it" by everyone from your accountant to your industry body. But the tools are inconsistent, the advice is vague, and you can't afford to waste time on something that won't pay. You need someone to cut through that and give you a straight answer.
Your team spends too much time on work that should not need doing
Retyping data between systems. Answering the same questions by email. Generating reports manually that are out of date before anyone reads them. These are not edge cases. They are the daily reality in most Cardiff businesses of 10 to 200 people, and they are exactly the category of task AI handles well.
Previous tech projects have not delivered
You've been sold systems before that were going to change everything. They didn't. The CRM no one uses. The reporting tool that requires a full-time person to maintain. Understandably, you're sceptical. The starting point here is not a pitch. It's a straight conversation about what AI can and cannot do for your specific business, with no obligation to proceed.
You want someone who understands how a real business works
Not someone who will hand you a framework and an invoice. Someone who has actually run a business, managed staff, dealt with cash flow, and had to make decisions with incomplete information. That context changes the advice significantly.
Three stages. No surprises.
Every engagement follows the same structure. You know what each stage involves and what it costs before it starts.
Initial call
Free 30-minute conversation. You describe your business and the problems you're trying to solve. The output is an honest view of whether AI is likely to help and, if so, where to focus. No slides, no pitch deck.
Process audit and roadmap
A structured look at which tasks in your business are genuinely automatable. Not everything is. The output is a prioritised list of opportunities with an honest view of cost, complexity, and expected return for each one.
Build or advise
Either hands-on implementation (Python tools, automation workflows, AI integrations built and deployed) or advisory support while your team or another supplier does the build. You choose which fits your situation.
For clients who only need the first two stages and then want to proceed with their own team, that is a perfectly complete engagement. The audit and roadmap is the hardest part for most businesses to do well internally.
A note on working locally
Cardiff has a significant number of SMEs across professional services, construction, manufacturing, and hospitality. Most of that business community is owner-managed. Most of it is facing the same pressures: rising labour costs, difficulty finding staff for repetitive roles, clients expecting faster turnaround times.
The Welsh Government does fund digital and AI adoption through Business Wales and the Digital Growth programme. In practice, most Cardiff business owners don't have the time to navigate funding applications, and the amounts are often too small to move the needle on a real implementation project. The more useful question is usually: is the work worth doing at full cost, because a project that's "worth it with grant funding" is often not actually worth it at all.
On-site working is available across South Wales. Initial assessments and most advisory work happen remotely. For businesses in Cardiff, a face-to-face working session is straightforward to arrange.
Start the conversationQuestions from Cardiff business owners
Yes. smedigital.ai is run by Anthony Jones, based in Cardiff. Anthony is the MD of Vanda Coatings, a Cardiff commercial business he has run for over 25 years, and holds an MSc in Computing from Cardiff University. The consulting practice is built on that background: an SME owner who built AI tools in his own business before advising others to do the same.
Yes. Cardiff is the base, but work covers the whole of South Wales and beyond. Initial calls are remote. For clients where on-site workshops make sense, that can be arranged across the region.
An initial call is free. A scoped process audit starts from a few hundred pounds. Ongoing advisory retainer support is priced monthly based on time commitment. Every engagement is costed transparently before work starts. There are no retainers sold before the scope is agreed.
Often the businesses that benefit most from AI right now are not tech companies. They are businesses with large volumes of manual, repetitive work: processing paperwork, answering standard queries, formatting reports, chasing data. Those tasks exist in accountancy practices, construction companies, care providers, manufacturers, and most other sectors active in Cardiff and South Wales.
The consulting work focuses on identifying and implementing AI that is worth doing, not on writing funding applications. If you are being pointed towards Business Wales Digital Growth or similar schemes and need an independent view on whether the proposed work actually makes sense for your business, that is exactly the kind of conversation this service is useful for.
Around 30 minutes. You describe your business: what it does, how many people work there, which tasks take the most time. The conversation covers where AI is likely to help, where it probably won't, and what a realistic starting point looks like. You leave with a clear view of whether it's worth pursuing further, at no cost and with no obligation.
Based in Cardiff. Worth a call.
The first conversation is free. Bring a description of your business and the tasks that take the most time. You'll leave with a clear view of what's worth doing and what isn't.