Custom AI Integration & LLM Development

Providing high-end AI consulting for Manchester's tech hubs (from MediaCityUK to the Northern Quarter) and remote-first UK enterprises. With 18+ years of system architecture experience and 50+ production projects, I help businesses integrate AI in ways that deliver measurable ROI — not just impressive demos, but production systems that solve real problems reliably and cost-effectively.

Why Choose a Manchester-based AI Architect?

Working with a local expert provides distinct advantages for UK businesses:

• UK Time Zone (GMT) — Real-time collaboration during business hours, rapid response to production issues
• UK GDPR & Security Expertise — Deep understanding of UK data protection requirements and compliance standards
• In-Person Strategy Sessions — Face-to-face architectural planning at Manchester's tech hubs for complex implementations
• Personal Accountability — Unlike global agencies, direct involvement and ownership of your project's success

The Current State of AI for Business

Large language models like GPT-4, Claude 3.5, and Gemini can understand and generate human-quality text, analyse documents, answer questions, and write code. These capabilities are available through simple API calls. But capability isn't the same as applicability — the real skill is understanding where AI adds value and designing systems that remain economical at scale.

Where AI Actually Delivers Value

• Customer Support Automation — Handle 70-80% of queries instantly, 24/7, escalating complex issues to humans
• Document Intelligence — Extract data from invoices, contracts, PDFs in seconds with 95%+ accuracy
• Internal Knowledge Management — Natural language Q&A over your documentation via RAG systems
• Content Generation Pipelines — Product descriptions, reports, email copy with human review workflows
• Code Review & Analysis — Automated security scanning, PR reviews, legacy code documentation

Curious which AI approach fits your use case? Try the AI Tech Stack Advisor to explore options.

RAG Architecture: The Foundation of Enterprise AI

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is the key to enterprise AI that actually works. Instead of relying on generic training data, RAG systems retrieve relevant information from your documents before generating responses. This dramatically reduces hallucinations and ensures company-specific accuracy.

My RAG implementations use LangChain or LlamaIndex for orchestration, vector databases like Pinecone or pgvector for storage, and hybrid search combining semantic and keyword matching for optimal relevance.

Handling AI's Limitations

Production AI requires careful handling of inherent limitations:

• Hallucination Prevention — RAG grounding, confidence scoring, source citations
• Consistency — Temperature tuning, prompt engineering, output validation
• Context Limits — Chunking strategies, summarization pipelines, multi-turn memory
• Human-in-the-Loop — Escalation workflows, review queues, feedback loops
• Graceful Degradation — Fallback responses, retry logic, service health monitoring

Cost Management & ROI

AI costs escalate quickly without proper architecture. I design solutions with cost awareness from day one: choosing appropriately-sized models per task, implementing intelligent caching, batching requests, and monitoring usage. You'll have realistic cost projections before we start.

Want to estimate your AI project costs? Use the AI Estimate Calculator for a detailed budget breakdown.

Building for Production

Production AI systems require engineering rigour beyond API calls. My implementations include: rate limiting to prevent cost overruns, robust error handling, prompt versioning for behaviour updates without redeployment, A/B testing infrastructure, and quality monitoring dashboards.

Over 18 years of system architecture experience ensures your AI solution isn't just a prototype — it's a production-ready system built to handle real-world conditions.

Getting Started

We typically begin with a 2-4 week Proof of Concept that validates the approach before full development. This reduces risk and provides concrete evidence of what AI can achieve for your specific situation.

Need a strategic roadmap before integration? Check my Fractional CTO services for comprehensive technical strategy and AI readiness assessment.

Ready to explore AI integration? Start a project or book a consultation to discuss your needs.