Frequently asked questions

Book a free 30-minute discovery call. We diagnose where AI or automation would actually save you time, scope a fixed-price project, and agree on a delivery date upfront. No multi-month consulting cycle to start, and no obligation if it isn't the right fit.

We design, build, and deploy alongside your team, not in a black box. Weekly checkpoints, training built in, and full knowledge transfer at handover. Your team owns the system after we leave; we don't sell dependency.

10 to 200 person UK service and industrial businesses. Our depth is in marine and offshore engineering, manufacturing, field service, and energy and infrastructure. If your operations are process-heavy and your tools are fragmented, we're the right fit. We do not work with early-stage startups without established processes, or with companies wanting to 'explore AI' without a real operational problem to solve.

Every solution is built with UK GDPR and data protection in mind from day one. We handle Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) when required, and we'll flag any process where AI introduces compliance risk before we build it.

No. Often the right answer is a workflow automation, a cleaner data pipeline, or a better-shaped process. We'll tell you when AI isn't the right tool for the job, even if you came expecting an AI project. About a third of our discovery calls end with a recommendation that isn't AI-first.

No. Our clients are operations leaders, finance leads, and owner-managers, not CTOs. Every system ships with documentation, video guides, and training so your team owns and runs it without us. If you do have technical staff and want them involved in the build, co-implementation often produces the strongest outcomes because adoption is faster.

Projects ship working software in 2 to 6 weeks, not months. A Quick Win (one workflow, one pain point) ships in 2 to 3 weeks. A Standard project (fully integrated AI or automation with team training) ships in 4 to 6 weeks. We name the delivery date upfront in the proposal.

Typical outcomes are 15 to 20 hours saved per employee per month, 90% fewer data entry errors, 70% of routine queries handled by AI, and 90% reduction in reporting time. Every project benchmarks against these so you can see the return rather than guess at it.

We work with enterprise-grade platforms like Make, n8n, and Zapier, plus custom solutions when needed. We choose based on your existing tech stack and requirements.

Most automation projects take 2 to 6 weeks from kickoff to go-live, depending on complexity. We start with quick wins that show value within days.

Yes. We specialise in connecting to the tools you already use. If it has an API or can export data, we can automate it.

All automations include monitoring, alerting, and fallback procedures. You'll know immediately if something needs attention, and we provide ongoing support.

Yes. We use enterprise AI platforms with strong data protection, UK data residency options, and can deploy fully private solutions where required.

No. We implement AI to handle the routine tasks your staff don't want to do, freeing them for higher-value work that requires human judgement.

We handle the technical work. You provide access to your documents, procedures, and examples. We configure, test, and refine until it meets your standards.

We implement safeguards including confidence thresholds, source citations, and escalation to humans for uncertain queries. Continuous monitoring improves accuracy over time.

We work with all major business tools: accounting software, CRMs, project management, spreadsheets, databases, and custom systems. If the data exists, we can access it.

No. We design dashboards and reports that business users can understand and interact with without technical skills.

Accuracy depends on your data quality and history. We're transparent about confidence levels and continuously improve models as more data becomes available.

We work with Power BI, Tableau, Looker, and custom solutions depending on your existing Microsoft or Google ecosystem and specific needs.

We focus exclusively on UK SMEs in service industries. Our recommendations are practical, budget-conscious, and designed for teams without in-house AI expertise.

Yes. We can take projects from strategy through implementation, or hand off to your team with clear specifications. Either way, we ensure the strategy is actionable.

That's valuable to know. Our assessment will identify prerequisites and help you build foundations before investing in AI tools.

A comprehensive AI strategy typically takes 4 to 6 weeks, including stakeholder interviews, analysis, and roadmap development.

The base Resilience Pack (health endpoints, runbook, recovery scripts, monitoring during stabilisation) is included with every Cognify build. Ongoing managed monitoring after stabilisation is a low monthly retainer.

Playbooks are scoped and reversible: restart a service, redeploy a known-good version, never delete data. If a fix doesn't work, the system escalates instead of trying anything destructive.

No. The health endpoint returns service status and version only, never user data. We're GDPR-compliant by design and only need a Data Processing Agreement covering monitoring access.

Yes, if we have access to add the health middleware. We commonly extend it to cover client-owned systems alongside the ones we've built.

You keep the runbook, recovery scripts, and health endpoints. Any in-house developer or partner can continue using them. Nothing locks you in.