AI consultancy for UK SMEs

We build AI that quietly runs the work no one has time for.

AI audits, AI systems, and custom automation for UK SMEs. No jargon, no rip-and-replace. We design, build, and embed the tools that give owners and their teams hours back, without hiring more people.

21Systems delivered
9Clients
8Industries
100%Satisfaction
02 · What we do

Four ways we help SMEsget AI working in the business.

Four ways SMEs put AI to work: AI audits, an AI operating system, business-document AI, and custom builds. Each engagement is shaped to the business, and most clients start with the Audit and grow from there.

Start here

AI Audit

A fast, structured AI audit: an AI readiness assessment of your business. In one to two weeks we map your processes, find your biggest time and money leaks, and hand you a prioritised list of AI opportunities, with ROI estimates and a 90-day action plan.

Built for owners who suspect AI could help but don't know where it fits. Most walk away with at least three quick wins worth far more than the cost of the audit: a straight answer to "where could AI actually help us" before you commit to building anything.

Our flagship

AIOS: AI Operating System

AIOS is a configurable AI system that runs the busywork your business depends on, one click at a time. For owners and execs it works like a personal AI assistant: calendar, inbox, briefings, and the small decisions that fill a day, handled. For the rest of the team it strips out the repetitive admin that eats their hours, freeing them for the work that actually moves the business.

It isn't full autopilot. AIOS schedules the recurring jobs that should run on their own, but most of it is an interface: one click to run almost any task, process, or workflow your business relies on. It's workflow automation shaped around how your team already works, and it connects to the tools they already use, so there's no rip and replace.

The foundation

Business Intelligence Layer

Out of the box, AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude know everything about the internet and nothing about your business. They've never read your proposals, met your clients, or seen how you work. The Business Intelligence Layer changes that: AI trained on your own business documents, so it actually knows your business.

Plug in your files and anyone on the team can ask your business a question in plain English and get answers grounded in your real documents, not the open internet. New hires get productive from day one, knowledge doesn't walk out of the door when senior staff are on leave, and your best people's expertise becomes everyone's.

When you know what you need

Custom AI Systems

When you already know the workflow, tool, or process you want to automate, we build it end-to-end. Custom AI systems, scoped, priced, and delivered to fit: AI voice agents that handle calls, custom dashboards, internal tools, and automation pipelines that replace manual, repetitive work.

This is the path for owners who've already spotted the specific job: "automate this admin task", "build us a voice agent", "an internal tool instead of buying more software". We scope it properly, tell you honestly what's worth building, and deliver something your team actually uses.

03 · How we work

Every engagementfollows the same shape.

So you know what to expect from week one. Discovery, design, build, embed: no surprises, no jargon, weekly progress.

Discovery

We map your processes, your tech stack, and where time and money are leaking. Usually starts with the AI Audit.

Design

We shortlist the highest-ROI opportunities, scope a solution, and agree the build with you. No surprises.

Build

We ship in weeks, not quarters. You see progress weekly. We bring in specialist help where needed.

Embed

We hand it over, train your team, and stay involved as your AI partner. The system gets better month after month.

04 · Why this matters now

AI is no longer optionalinfrastructure for SMEs.

A few numbers on where AI adoption sits for UK SMEs, and why the businesses that move early tend to pull ahead.

20%
of the working week is spent searching for information staff already have.McKinsey Global Institute, 2012
59%
of UK SMEs are now using or planning to adopt AI.British Chambers of Commerce / Intuit, 2025
100%
client satisfaction across every Lume engagement to date.Lume Studios
21
AI systems delivered for SMEs across 8 industries.Lume Studios
20 mins
average proposal time after a Lume install, down from 4 hours.Lume client data
80%
average time savings reported by clients.Lume client data
05 · Selected work

A few recent builds.

Client names withheld for confidentiality. A few of the systems we've built, and what they changed for the business.

Case 01The multi-agent content system

An enterprise-ready, multi-agent system that produces several content types at once, matching both the user's tone of voice and the brand's own voice and values.

A single point of contact that streamlines content and comms generation across the business.

Case 02The automated lead scraper

A fully custom, cloud-hosted lead scraper that returns qualified leads every week, getting past heavy anti-bot measures.

Qualified lead lists land in the sales team's inbox automatically, every week.

Case 03The custom admin application

A custom Python application that reads raw input documents and cleans the data into structured CSV outputs, ready for analysis.

A recurring 12-hour task cut to 30 seconds.

06 · What clients say

In their words.

Short quotes from real engagements. Full references available on request.

I would say Lume Studios has been extremely helpful and informative. The support I received and processes created saves and will save me a lot of time in the future. Ben was incredibly supportive and quick to respond with any questions so all round 10/10.
Samuel H · Managed Water
Ben has been a great help and has been advising us of the best solutions and fits for our processes. Good experience.
Keith Smith · Managed Water
07 · About Lume

A small, focused team.

Led by people who have actually shipped this stuff inside SMEs.

Ben Spears, founder of Lume Studios

Lume Studios was founded by Ben Spears, an AI and automation consultant based in Farnham, UK, working remote-first with SMEs UK-wide.

Ben's path into AI started in frontend development. He pivoted fully into the tools: months of personal projects, daily hands-on use, and now a year of consultancy work helping businesses get real implementation rather than press releases. Lume exists to close the gap between what these tools can do and what most businesses actually use them for.

Today Lume works with a small portfolio of UK SMEs, building the AI systems their teams use every day. Ben is the sole point of contact for every client, and every piece is built for the way SMEs actually run: practical, reliable, and worth more the longer it's in place.

“We build AI systems we'd want running our own business: convenient, simple, and worth more every month.” Ben Spears, Founder
Ben on LinkedIn →
08 · Common questions

Things owners ask first.

If your question isn't here, drop it in the form at the bottom. Every enquiry comes straight to Ben.

One to two weeks from kickoff to delivery, depending on the size of your business and how many processes we look at. In that time we sit down with you and the team, map how work actually flows day to day, and pinpoint where time and money are leaking. You come away with a prioritised list of AI opportunities, rough ROI estimates for each, and a 90-day action plan you can act on with us or on your own. We work around your team's calendar, not the other way round, so it doesn't pull people off their day jobs. Most of the effort is ours. We usually need a few short conversations and a representative look at how you work, not a big time commitment from you.

There's no minimum. We mostly work with SMEs, but we're happy to help businesses of any size, and we'll always be straight about whether we're the right fit. Smaller teams often see the fastest wins: when a few hours a week are handed back, that's a real dent in the working week and it shows up almost immediately. Larger organisations tend to see the bigger financial ripple: the same saving multiplied across more people and more processes. What matters more than headcount is whether you have repetitive, rules-based work worth automating and a willingness to change how a few things get done. If AI isn't the right answer for you yet, we'll tell you, rather than sell you something.

Yes. Everything we build is designed to connect to the platforms you already run on, rather than replace them: your office suite (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), your CRM, your file storage, your project and comms tools. We won't ask you to rip out systems that are working. The idea is to sit AI on top of your existing stack so it fits how your team already operates, not to hand everyone another new tool to learn. One honest caveat: if a process is already broken or messy, we'll say so, and we'll usually suggest a cleaner version before we automate it. There's little point bolting intelligence onto a workflow that isn't working, because you'd just be speeding up the mess.

ChatGPT and Copilot are excellent general-purpose assistants, but they're generic: they know the public internet, not your business. They've never read your proposals, seen your processes, or met your clients, so you spend time re-explaining context and double-checking answers. What we build is grounded in your business: your own documents, your workflows, your team, connected to the tools you already use. Instead of a blank box you prompt from scratch each time, you get a system that already knows how your business runs and slots into your day. The practical difference is reliance: a general chatbot is something people occasionally try and then drift away from, whereas a system built around your actual work becomes something the team depends on. We often build on top of those same underlying models; the value is in the wiring around them.

It depends on what we build, so we don't quote a one-size figure. A few things move the number: the size and complexity of what you're automating, how many people and systems it touches, how clean and accessible your data already is, and whether you want a single focused build or a broader system that grows over time. A tightly scoped automation of one clear process sits at the lower end; a business-wide system with several moving parts sits higher. The AI Audit is the low-commitment way to find out: it puts rough numbers and priorities against your specific situation, so most clients start there and decide what to build next from the findings rather than a guess. When we do quote, it's scoped and agreed up front, so there are no surprises.

Honestly, sometimes the answer is "not yet", and we'll tell you if that's the case. But for most SMEs the value isn't some far-off transformation; it's hours handed back every week on the admin, reporting, and repetitive work that quietly drains the team. The return tends to come from three places: time your people stop losing to busywork, work that gets done consistently instead of slipping through the cracks, and capacity you free up without adding headcount. The AI Audit exists precisely to answer this before you spend anything on a build: it puts rough numbers against where AI could help and where it couldn't, so you decide on evidence rather than hype. Smaller teams often see the quickest, clearest wins, because a few hours saved is a bigger share of the week.

Farnham, in Surrey. But we work remote-first with clients right across the UK, so where you are usually isn't a constraint. Most of what we do, from the AI Audit through to build and handover, works well over video and shared tools, which keeps things fast and keeps costs down. Where being in the room genuinely helps, we travel: for local businesses we're happy to spend regular time on-site with the team, and for clients further afield (including in the US) we come out for kickoffs, on-site work, and in-person installs where it adds real value. Remote-first, UK-wide is the default; in person is there whenever it earns its place.

Fair question. It's the first thing most owners ask about the Business Intelligence Layer. The short version: your documents stay yours. Wherever possible we design it so your files stay inside systems you already control (your own Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, your own storage) rather than being copied somewhere new, and access is limited to the people you decide should have it. The AI models we build on don't learn from your data: your proposals, contracts, and internal files aren't used to train a public model. Before anything goes live we walk you through exactly where your data sits and who can reach it, and we work within whatever security and compliance requirements your business already has. If you have specific obligations (client confidentiality, sector rules) tell us early and we'll build around them.

09 · Let's talk

Tell us a little aboutyour business.

We'll be in touch within two working days. Ready to commission a build, or just after a quick read on where AI could help? Either way, the form is the place to start.

Every enquiry comes straight to Ben. No call-centres, no sales sequences, no chasing.

Reply within two working days
No sales sequences. No chasing.
Direct line to the founder.
Please tell us your name.
A valid email, please.
What's the company called?
A few sentences will do.

We'll only use your details to reply to this enquiry. See our Privacy Policy.

Thanks, we've got it.

We'll be in touch within two working days.
Ben