Insights
Practical thinking on where AI creates business value.
On finding the right AI opportunities, designing the systems around them, and the business case that has to come first. Written for the people who run specialist agencies and SMBs.
Latest articles
6 articlesAI StrategyUnderpin Works is now an OpenAI Select PartnerUnderpin Works is now an OpenAI Select Partner. Here’s what the partnership means for how we help businesses identify, build and deploy practical AI systems.10 min readAI for RecruitmentWhy Better Prompts Won’t Fix Generic OutreachMost AI outreach becomes generic because the system knows too little about your business, your prospects and what makes someone worth contacting. Here’s how to build a more personalised, repeatable AI outreach system.16 min readAI for RecruitmentRecruitment Business Development: When a 3-Minute Task Becomes 15 HoursA three-minute prospect research task can become 15 hours when repeated across 300 companies. Where should technology help, and what should remain recruiter-led?8 min readAI for RecruitmentRecruitment Business Development Software vs Custom Outbound: SourceWhale, Vente AI, Recruiterflow, Clay & MoreRecruitment agencies can buy the same outbound software as their competitors. The real advantage comes from reverse-engineering what already works for your agency and building your signals, targeting and messaging around it.17 min readCustom AI DevelopmentWhat to automate before building custom softwareCustom software is expensive to build and expensive to change. Automation is faster and cheaper to validate. How to know which you actually need.4 min readAI SystemsWhy review-ready AI output is more useful than autonomous publishingFully autonomous AI publishing sounds efficient. In practice, it trades short-term speed for long-term reliability. Review-ready output is a better design.5 min read
Where we focus
Five topics, built into connected bodies of work.
AI for RecruitmentBusiness development, candidate-led BD, account intelligence and the operational side of winning mandates.Explore the topic →AI for MarketingContent operations, SERP research, inbound handling and the delivery workflows behind agency margin.Explore the topic →AI SystemsHow working systems get designed: workflows, integrations, approval states and human-in-the-loop review.Explore the topic →AI StrategyWhere AI is worth using, how to build the business case, and when the right answer is not to automate.Explore the topic →Custom AI DevelopmentBuild vs buy, custom agents, internal tools and what it takes to move from prototype to dependable system.Explore the topic →
Growing deliberatelyEach topic grows into a connected body of work — pillar guides first, supporting articles around them.
Have a business problem you think AI could help solve?
Reading is a good start. Working backwards from your actual workflow is better.