Practical AI, or none at all.
AI is worth adding when it solves a problem you actually have. Bolted on to look modern, it’s an expensive way to annoy your customers. I’m a WordPress developer in Norwich who has built and shipped real AI features, and this is the honest version.
Start from the problem, not the tool.
I’d rather tell you that at the quote stage than hand you a chatbot nobody uses.
The question is never “where can we add AI”. It’s “what’s slow, or confusing, or costing you time”, and then whether AI happens to be the best tool for that.
Sometimes it is. Often the answer is better search, clearer writing, or a form with three fields instead of eleven, and none of those need a language model.
Worth doing, and not.
What actually works
- Search that understands what someone meant, not just the words they typed
- Answering the question your customers ask forty times a week, properly, at two in the morning
- Helping you write and maintain content, with a human deciding what ships
- Sorting, tagging and routing what arrives: enquiries, uploads, messages
What I’d talk you out of
- A chatbot on a five page website. Your visitors can read five pages; what they can’t do is get past a robot that won’t give them your phone number
- AI that writes your site on its own and publishes it unread. It sounds like everybody else, and Google has got much better at noticing
- Anything where the honest description is “so we can say we use AI”
The common thread is that each one removes a specific piece of friction you could name before I turned up.
What it looks like for a local business.
A few examples of the kind of thing that works. These are illustrations, not client case studies:
- A Norwich gym with 200 pages of class info and FAQs: a search box where “something gentle for my back on a Tuesday” finds the right class.
- A Norfolk trades business getting 30 enquiries a week: each one is read, sorted by job type and urgency, and the urgent ones go straight to your phone.
- A local shop answering the same delivery and returns questions every day: an assistant that answers from your own policies and hands over to a person when it isn’t sure.
AI I’ve actually shipped.
I don’t just recommend AI, I build with it. Learn to Speak Easy is my own speaking practice app: you get a random question, two minutes to answer, and AI feedback on how it went.
Building it taught me where AI is genuinely useful, where it falls over, and what it really costs to run.
I also built Spacemail for Claude, a free connector that lets Claude check, search and draft replies in Spacemail inboxes.
What you’d pay.
Priced to the job, because the jobs are genuinely different: a smarter search on an existing site is not the same work as a system that reads your enquiries and files them. Tell me the problem and you’ll get a number, and if the number isn’t worth it I’ll say so.
There’s usually a running cost too, because these services bill per use. I’ll tell you what that looks like up front rather than letting you discover it in month three.
Local, and honest about it.
I’m based in Norwich and have worked with businesses across Norfolk since 2005. If you’re curious about AI but not sure whether it’s for you, that’s a perfectly good place to start. A short conversation usually settles it either way.
Questions people ask.
Is AI worth it for a small business website?
Sometimes. It’s worth it when it saves real time or wins real customers. For a small brochure site, the answer is often no, and I’ll tell you that.
Will an AI assistant give my customers wrong answers?
It can, if it’s set up carelessly. I build assistants that answer only from your own information and hand over to a person when they aren’t sure.
What does AI cost to run each month?
It depends on how much it’s used. You’ll get an estimate of the running cost before anything is built.
Is my customers’ data safe?
I’ll explain exactly what data goes where before anything is built, and only send these services what the feature actually needs.
Can you add AI to my existing WordPress site?
Yes. Most AI features can be added to an existing site without a rebuild.
Can AI write my website content?
It can help, but it shouldn’t do it alone. On every site I build, the words are written properly and checked by a person.
What’s the problem you’re trying to solve?
Describe it in plain English and I’ll tell you whether AI is the answer, or whether something simpler and cheaper is.
