Applied Intelligence Ventures
Your business, process and workforce transformation partner. We understand what your organisation needs, then build responsible, people centred solutions that everyone can use.
What we do
If it can be government funded, that's Education. Everything else is AI Enablement. Same values, same people first approach, whichever door you come through.
Clear thinking, no hype, no vendor lock in.
We help organisations understand and use AI properly, from a rapid diagnostic through to an embedded transformation partnership. Independent advice from senior people who deliver the work themselves, building solutions everyone in your organisation can actually use.
Clients includeNqual · CSS · High Performance · Code Institute
Explore AI EnablementAI skills, accessible to everyone in the workplace.
We deliver AI qualifications and workplace training through funded and non funded routes, helping employers build capability and opening doors for people who might otherwise miss out.
Clients includeWomenEd · The Belonging Effect · Wiser Academy · Peridot · Challenge TRG · Blackburn Central High School · Parkdean Resorts
Explore EducationHow we work
Too often, conversations about AI begin with the technology. Ours begin with people, purpose and the problems worth solving. AIV starts by understanding your business, then recommends the right answer, even when it's simpler or cheaper than you expected.
Diagnose first
We work out what your business actually requires before recommending anything. Sometimes that's ambitious. Sometimes it's a simple fix, and that's fine.
Built for the overlooked
SMEs, smaller organisations and underrepresented groups are underserved by the large AI providers. They're exactly who we exist for.
Boutique and human led
Senior people, small teams, honest advice. We stay close to the work and to the people doing it.
Inclusion
AI is moving fast. Without care it will leave people behind: women underrepresented in tech, diverse voices missing from the room, and the digitally excluded locked out entirely.
We treat AI as a vehicle to bring those people forward, not a filter that screens them out. Inclusion isn't a workstream at AIV. It's a thread that runs through everything we build, teach and advise on.
The point of applied intelligence is to widen the circle, not shrink it.
Our stance
Who you build with matters. We choose partners and technologies on the strength of their values as well as their capability. And we think the humans matter more than the models.
We preference AI partners who take safety and ethics seriously, like Anthropic, whose Claude models are built with responsibility at the core. The good guys of AI exist, and we choose to work with them.
Great AI implementation is a human discipline. Backgrounds in the humanities, philosophy and education often matter more than pure technical depth, because the hard questions are about people.
If the right answer is smaller, simpler or cheaper than you expected, that's the answer you'll get. Our model only works if you can trust what we tell you.
Leadership
Chris Thomason
Managing Director
Read bioChris has spent over 10 years at the intersection of AI, technology and business operations, advising organisations across financial services, healthcare, retail and the public sector.
A former Computer Science teacher who moved into digital strategy and education, he now helps organisations adopt AI through partnership, product and skills training. His approach is deliberately direct: assess what's real, cut what isn't, and build a path organisations can actually walk. No vendor commissions, no agenda beyond getting it right.
Yasmin Ariff
Education Director
Read bioYasmin has worked in education for over sixteen years, advancing into leadership before discovering coaching, an experience she describes as genuinely life changing.
She believes everyone deserves a coach, and champions the government funded Coaching Apprenticeship as a way to make that the norm in every workplace. Outside work she's a qualified yoga and fitness instructor, a daily meditator and a London Marathon finisher, and spent five years living in the UAE.
Adam Ariff
Commercial Director
Read bioAdam worked his way from part qualified assessor to senior roles at a training provider, where he grew frustrated by how slowly large providers responded to employers' needs. That inspired his vision: close relationships with employers and learning built around real people.
He's especially drawn to the mindset side of education, helping learners see that the barrier is usually the thought, not the doing. Away from work he's a former certified fitness coach, an advisory board member for Parkdean Resorts' employment programmes, and a prolific creator on business, money and mindset.
Myles Hughes
Director of AI Enablement
Read bioMyles is an educational professional, trustee and business owner who has led teams across education, telecoms, financial services, channel partnerships and energy.
A former secondary school teacher, he's driven by personal and professional development, from designing innovative learning experiences to mentoring others. When he's not immersed in tech and education, you'll find him enjoying a good cup of coffee.
Get in touch
Not sure where to start with AI? That's exactly the conversation we're built for. No pitch and no jargon, just an honest look at what your business needs and how AI can work for everyone in it.