AI Services
AI Consultancy, Training and Advisory for Technical Companies
Strategy first. Capability next. Then scale what works.
Your people are already using AI. The question is whether it's helping the business grow, or just helping individuals get through their inbox faster.
We help owners and senior leaders of engineering and technical companies set the direction for AI, build the skills to use it properly, and decide where it's worth investing. We advise, train and oversee. When something needs building, we bring in the right specialist partner and manage it from your side of the table.
- TEDx speaker on AI and being human
- Expert on the Diamond Future Leaders 2026 programme
- BSc Eng (Ind) with a background in industrial engineering
- 25+ years in B2B sales and marketing
- Founder of the AI Leaders Lab peer programme
- 10 to 200 staff, turnover between £1M and £25M
- Established and profitable, but growth has flattened
- A small sales team, often one to four people, working reactively
- No marketing lead, or one junior marketer doing a bit of everything
- Decisions made by the MD, Commercial Director or Operations Director
- Long, technical sales cycles where the buyer is an engineer too
We're not a typical AI agency
We don't sell software licences, and we won't lock you into a platform. Our goal is growth: helping your business win more work, run more efficiently and build capability that lasts. We get there by helping you make good decisions about AI, training your people to use it well, and keeping the whole programme on track.
SME was founded by Stefan Buss, an industrial engineer by training who has spent over 25 years in B2B sales and marketing. He treats AI like any new piece of plant: specify it properly, train the operators, test it, then scale. His TEDx talk, "AI - From Revolution to Evolution", looks at how leaders can adopt AI without losing what makes their business human.


You've got 30 years of applied knowledge in the building and none of it is written down where a buyer can find it. Meanwhile a less capable competitor with a better online presence gets shortlisted ahead of you, and you find out after the fact.
Your expertise is invisible.

Marketing has never been engineered.
There's no strategy document, no defined audience, no measurement. Activity happens - a trade show here, a LinkedIn post there, a website refresh every four years - but none of it connects. You wouldn't run a production line this way, and it produces exactly the output you'd expect.
The plan.
Channels, campaigns, assets required, budget, milestones and the measurement framework. This is where we agree what "working" looks like.
Weeks 7-8
Do you only work with engineering companies?
Engineering is our deepest sector, but we work across industrial, manufacturing, construction, technology, energy and other technical B2B businesses. The common thread is a complex product or service, a technical buyer, and a long sales cycle. If your customers ask detailed questions before they buy, we'll be useful.
We already have someone doing marketing. Does that rule us out?
Not at all - it's one of the most common situations we walk into. Usually there's a capable person without senior direction, or a junior marketer covering too much ground. Mentoring and fractional engagements exist precisely for this. We make your existing person more effective rather than replacing them.
How much does this cost?
It depends entirely on the engagement model. Strategy-only work is a defined project with a fixed price. Fractional and implementation work is an agreed monthly commitment based on the days involved. We'll give you a costed proposal after the consultation - no open-ended retainers and no surprises.
How long before we see results?
Sales activity and outreach can produce conversations within weeks. Website and search work typically takes three to six months to show meaningful movement, and longer in competitive sectors. Anyone promising faster is either lucky or misleading you. We set the measurement framework up front so you can see progress before you see revenue.
What's actually included in the free 90-minute consultation?
A proper working session, not a sales pitch. We look at your current position, your website and search visibility, your competitors, and where the obvious gaps sit. You leave with a written summary of what we found and what we'd prioritise, whether or not you work with us.
Do we have to commit to a long contract?
No. Strategy work is a defined project. Ongoing work runs on a rolling basis with a notice period, so you can stop if it isn't delivering. We'd rather earn the next month than lock in the next year.
Do you do the work or subcontract it?
We run a fractional team of specialists - SEO, websites, LinkedIn, design, content - each dedicated to their field. Stefan leads the strategy and stays involved throughout. You get specialist skill without carrying the headcount, and one point of contact rather than five.
Can AI just do our marketing for us?
No, and be wary of anyone selling that. AI accelerates research, drafting and analysis. It doesn't set direction, understand your market, or judge what matters. Used without a strategy it produces a large volume of forgettable content, which is worse than nothing with a technical audience. We cover this properly in our AI webinar.
What if we're not ready to commit to anything yet?
Then take the smaller step. Read the survey results, come to a webinar, or take the consultation and use the findings yourself. We'd rather be useful now and earn the work later.
Engineering Discipline, Applied to AI Adoption
Engineering Precision, Applied to Your Sales & Marketing
The challenge you're facing
You're not a start-up chasing a first sale. You're not a corporate with a marketing department and a budget line to match. You're an established SME, and you've hit a familiar wall.
Sales and marketing is inconsistent. Maybe one or two people run it. Maybe it's squeezed in around everything else. You know it needs to be better, but here's the catch: you're not a sales and marketing specialist, so how do you recruit, brief and manage a function you don't fully understand?
The challenge you're facing
More UK businesses are using AI than ever. Among firms with 10 or more employees, adoption has risen from about 12% in late 2023 to 35%. But it's shallow: the average adopting business uses only around 1.6 AI technologies.
Here's the paradox. While most businesses are only scratching the surface, the technology itself is moving at an exponential rate. Every month brings new models, new tools and new capabilities. So the gap between what AI can do and what your business actually does with it keeps widening.
And the barrier isn't budget or technology. In our own survey of engineering companies, 61% said skills and change management were the biggest barrier to AI adoption.
In technical companies we see the same pattern again and again. Staff are using ChatGPT, Copilot or Claude on their own. There are no rules, no shared ways of working and no link to the business plan. Meanwhile the board is asking "what's our AI strategy?", and nobody has a clear answer.
Hope is not a load-bearing AI strategy.
Who We Work With - And Who We Don't
"Stefan combines deep AI expertise with the hard-to-find ability to teach it, supporting me from learning the fundamentals of Claude through to building agents that actually serve my business. His thoughtful reviews and insightful recommendations on my efforts to create skills, superskills, and agents for critical functions of the firm have been invaluable."
Michael K. O'Brien, Founder and CEO, NGT BioPharma Consultants
How we help

AI Strategy and Consultation
For leadership teams that want to prioritise AI and implement it in the right order. We run leadership discovery and assess your team's AI capability. We map out opportunities and prioritise use cases by value and effort, balancing the risks of adoption and security. You leave with a practical AI roadmap, training needs and clear next steps.

1:1 AI Advisory
Monthly one-to-one sessions for an owner or senior leader to:
- Increase your understanding of AI and what it means for your business
- Review your projects and half-built ideas
- Sharpen your thinking and decisions
- Build skills, projects and agents that work for your business

AI Leaders Lab
A monthly peer programme for business owners and leaders. Each session combines practical training with peer review: members share what they're building, learn from each other and leave with something to apply that month. Membership includes one-to-one mentoring and access to online resources. Launching November 2026.

AI Training
Training for leaders, managers and teams. Choose customised in-house training built around your company's own tasks, or join an open course alongside other businesses. Options include AI Foundations for managers and staff, and AI for Marketing for marketing leaders and their teams.

Fractional Chief AI Officer (CAIO)
Senior AI leadership without a full-time hire. We sit with your board or senior leadership team on a part-time basis. We set the AI direction, govern how AI is used, guide investment decisions and keep adoption moving.

AI Integration Through Partners
Where a project is beyond your team's current ability, we help you implement specific use cases - custom apps, automations or agents. We work on your side: we specify the requirement, select specialist partners with the right coding and domain experience, and manage delivery through to a working result.
- 10 to 200 staff, turnover between £1M and £25M
- Established and profitable, but growth has flattened
- A small sales team, often one to four people, working reactively
- No marketing lead, or one junior marketer doing a bit of everything
- Decisions made by the MD, Commercial Director or Operations Director
- Long, technical sales cycles where the buyer is an engineer too
AI training for every level
Tools alone don't change how a business works. People do. That's why our training is built around your real tasks, not generic demos.
- Leaders: strategy, governance and making the right AI decisions
- Managers and staff: AI Foundations, prompting and repeatable workflows
- Marketing leaders and teams: AI for Marketing, from research to content to measurement
Choose customised in-house training for your company, or join an open course with other businesses.
"Stefan delivered a training session for our staff on AI. It was excellent. Thoughtfully prepared and delivered he managed to inspire the team whilst ensuring that we had the basics to use AI properly."
Paul Cartwright, Marketing Manager
Who We Work With - And Who We Don't
An AI system, not a one-off project
We treat AI adoption the way an engineer commissions new equipment. Then we make it a system that keeps running.
- Audit and assess: understand your goals, your people's current AI capability, your existing tech stack and where time is being lost.
- Prioritise and plan: pick the use cases with the clearest value and manageable risk, and build your AI strategy and adoption roadmap.
- Train and empower: build the skills your people need to use AI properly and safely. Set up the right technology, licences and security.
- Pilot and test: test on real work, measure the results and calibrate. Iterate and improve before rolling out.
- Scale and embed: roll out what works across the business, with specialist partners where building is needed.
Then the cycle continues. We help you create a system that keeps exploring new use cases, testing them and approving the ones that earn their place. Monthly advisory or a fractional CAIO role keeps it running. We stay independent, so our recommendations are based on what's right for you, not on what we sell.
Energy & Renewables
A fast-moving market with long procurement cycles and shifting policy. Demand is there. Getting in front of the right specifier, at the right stage, consistently, is the harder problem.

The leaders we help

Managing Director or Owner
The Strategic Helmsman
You know AI matters, but you need a clear plan, a sensible budget and confidence that the investment will pay back. We give you the roadmap and a sounding board.

Commercial, Sales or Marketing Director
The Pipeline Commander
You want AI to win more work, speed up proposals and improve follow-up. We train your team and help you build workflows that move the pipeline.

Operations Director
The Efficiency Architect
You want less wasted time and fewer messy workarounds. We help you standardise how AI is used, so it runs like the rest of your operations.
- 10 to 200 staff, turnover between £1M and £25M
- Established and profitable, but growth has flattened
- A small sales team, often one to four people, working reactively
- No marketing lead, or one junior marketer doing a bit of everything
- Decisions made by the MD, Commercial Director or Operations Director
- Long, technical sales cycles where the buyer is an engineer too
Who we're not for
- Companies looking for the cheapest AI tool
- Businesses wanting AI to replace their people
- One-off "AI magic" with no change to how work gets done
- Teams not willing to give time to training
- Anyone expecting full transformation in a month
If you want AI that sticks, built on strategy and skills, we should talk.
Energy & Renewables
A fast-moving market with long procurement cycles and shifting policy. Demand is there. Getting in front of the right specifier, at the right stage, consistently, is the harder problem.

AI myths and pain points

AI is being used, but not managed
Your people are experimenting on their own. Good ideas stay with individuals, risks go unseen, and nobody can say what AI is actually delivering for the business. And when that employee leaves, their personal productivity gains and their know-how walk out of the door with them.

Your AI tools have outpaced your people
You may already pay for Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude licences. Without training and clear use cases, most of that capability sits idle.

Build or buy?
Some companies buy tools in, or hire someone for a one-off AI project. That can work in the short term. But it doesn't equip your staff to edit, improve or build tools of their own, let alone understand what's been built. When something needs changing, you're back to square one.

AI can't be fully outsourced
Think back to when computers arrived in the office. You couldn't outsource the use of a computer to someone else - everyone had to learn. AI is the same. Specialists can build specific tools, but everyone in your business will need to know how to use AI at one level or another.
- 10 to 200 staff, turnover between £1M and £25M
- Established and profitable, but growth has flattened
- A small sales team, often one to four people, working reactively
- No marketing lead, or one junior marketer doing a bit of everything
- Decisions made by the MD, Commercial Director or Operations Director
- Long, technical sales cycles where the buyer is an engineer too
Where to start
- Book a 20-minute call: no pitch, just a conversation about where you are.
- Request an AI assessment: for you as an individual or for your team, so we know the starting point.
- Choose your route: strategy, Leaders Lab or training, depending on what you need first.
- Keep it on track: monthly 1:1 advisory or a fractional CAIO role.
- 10 to 200 staff, turnover between £1M and £25M
- Established and profitable, but growth has flattened
- A small sales team, often one to four people, working reactively
- No marketing lead, or one junior marketer doing a bit of everything
- Decisions made by the MD, Commercial Director or Operations Director
- Long, technical sales cycles where the buyer is an engineer too
Frequently asked questions
Do you only work with engineering companies?
No. Most of our clients are technical businesses - engineering, manufacturing, construction, electrical, IT and life sciences. What they have in common is complex products or services, and leaders who want AI handled with structure rather than hype.
What's the difference between AI advisory and the AI Leaders Lab?
1:1 advisory is entirely focused on you, your business and your projects, every month. The AI Leaders Lab is a group programme: monthly training and peer review with other business leaders, plus one-to-one mentoring and online resources. Many leaders start in the Lab and move to 1:1 advisory as their projects grow.
What does a fractional Chief AI Officer (CAIO) do?
A fractional CAIO gives you senior AI leadership part-time. That means setting the AI direction, advising the board, governing safe use, guiding investment and keeping adoption moving. It suits companies that need AI leadership but not a full-time executive.
Do you build AI apps and automations?
Where a project is beyond your team's ability, we help you implement it through specialist partners. We specify what's needed, choose partners with the right coding and domain experience, and manage delivery from your side. This keeps our advice independent and gets you the right expertise for each job.
Is the training in-house or open course?
Both. In-house training is customised around your company's own tasks and tools. Open courses let you or a few team members learn alongside other businesses. Training is available for leaders, managers and staff, plus AI for Marketing for marketing teams.
Which AI tools do you train on?
We work with the tools you already have or are considering, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Gemini. The focus is on skills that transfer between tools, not on one platform.
What is the AI assessment?
A structured look at where you or your team are with AI today: skills, current use, tech stack, risks and opportunities. It gives us a baseline and shows where training or strategy will make the biggest difference.
How long before we see results?
Most teams save time within weeks of training, once they apply AI to real tasks. Strategy and larger rollouts take longer. We set measurable goals at the start so you can see progress.
What if we're not ready to commit to anything yet?
That's fine. Book a 20-minute call or join one of our AI webinars. You'll get a clearer picture of where AI fits in your business, with no obligation.


You've got 30 years of applied knowledge in the building and none of it is written down where a buyer can find it. Meanwhile a less capable competitor with a better online presence gets shortlisted ahead of you, and you find out after the fact.
Your expertise is invisible.

Marketing has never been engineered.
There's no strategy document, no defined audience, no measurement. Activity happens - a trade show here, a LinkedIn post there, a website refresh every four years - but none of it connects. You wouldn't run a production line this way, and it produces exactly the output you'd expect.
The plan.
Channels, campaigns, assets required, budget, milestones and the measurement framework. This is where we agree what "working" looks like.
Weeks 7-8
Do you only work with engineering companies?
Engineering is our deepest sector, but we work across industrial, manufacturing, construction, technology, energy and other technical B2B businesses. The common thread is a complex product or service, a technical buyer, and a long sales cycle. If your customers ask detailed questions before they buy, we'll be useful.
We already have someone doing marketing. Does that rule us out?
Not at all - it's one of the most common situations we walk into. Usually there's a capable person without senior direction, or a junior marketer covering too much ground. Mentoring and fractional engagements exist precisely for this. We make your existing person more effective rather than replacing them.
How much does this cost?
It depends entirely on the engagement model. Strategy-only work is a defined project with a fixed price. Fractional and implementation work is an agreed monthly commitment based on the days involved. We'll give you a costed proposal after the consultation - no open-ended retainers and no surprises.
How long before we see results?
Sales activity and outreach can produce conversations within weeks. Website and search work typically takes three to six months to show meaningful movement, and longer in competitive sectors. Anyone promising faster is either lucky or misleading you. We set the measurement framework up front so you can see progress before you see revenue.
What's actually included in the free 90-minute consultation?
A proper working session, not a sales pitch. We look at your current position, your website and search visibility, your competitors, and where the obvious gaps sit. You leave with a written summary of what we found and what we'd prioritise, whether or not you work with us.
Do we have to commit to a long contract?
No. Strategy work is a defined project. Ongoing work runs on a rolling basis with a notice period, so you can stop if it isn't delivering. We'd rather earn the next month than lock in the next year.
Do you do the work or subcontract it?
We run a fractional team of specialists - SEO, websites, LinkedIn, design, content - each dedicated to their field. Stefan leads the strategy and stays involved throughout. You get specialist skill without carrying the headcount, and one point of contact rather than five.
Can AI just do our marketing for us?
No, and be wary of anyone selling that. AI accelerates research, drafting and analysis. It doesn't set direction, understand your market, or judge what matters. Used without a strategy it produces a large volume of forgettable content, which is worse than nothing with a technical audience. We cover this properly in our AI webinar.
What if we're not ready to commit to anything yet?
Then take the smaller step. Read the survey results, come to a webinar, or take the consultation and use the findings yourself. We'd rather be useful now and earn the work later.
Ready to get AI working for your business?
A 20-minute call with Stefan. No pitch, just a clear view of where you are and what to do next.
