AI Labs by The Ops Toolbox

How we can help

We meet you where the programme actually is — whether you need alignment, a second opinion on a build in flight, or a six-week pilot with defensible metrics.

Worked examples and decision guides you can run in reviews and pilots — an evidence base from The Ops Toolbox.

Who we work with

Four stakeholder groups we see in almost every programme — often in the same steering forum.

COOs & operations leaders

Contact centre, field service, and internal ops assistants — with clear escalation and audit trails leaders can follow.

CTOs & platform engineering

Pattern choice across clouds, model routing, reliable long-running workflows, and standards product teams can reuse.

Risk, legal & compliance partners

Answers tied to approved sources, content safety checks, and workflows where each step has a clear owner.

Transformation & PMO leads

Structured discovery outputs, initiative charters, and pilots that connect workshop notes to delivery backlogs.

Engagement shapes

Pick the shape that matches your decision horizon — workshops, deliverables, and reference builds, not slide-only strategy.

1
Transformation assessment
1 to 2 weeks
Best for: Leadership alignment before funding pilots
- Current-state map of data, systems, and AI ambition
- Prioritized initiatives with metrics and dependencies
- Recommended first pilot with scope boundaries
2
Architecture & governance review
2 to 3 weeks
Best for: Teams with a build in flight that need a sober second opinion
- Written review of diagrams, APIs, and policy posture
- Workshop with engineering and risk stakeholders
- Concrete change list, not vague “consider security” notes
3
Pilot squad
4 to 8 weeks
Best for: Proving value on one workflow (support, ops, compliance Q&A)
- Runnable pilot aligned to your identity and data boundaries
- Weekly steering with business and platform owners
- Scale playbook and handoff pack for your team to own
4
Advisory retainer
Ongoing
Best for: CTOs and COOs navigating a multi-initiative AI program
- Fortnightly office hours and async review of designs
- Vendor and build-vs-buy sense-checks
- Pattern library updates as your stack evolves

Indicative commercial shapes

Not a public rate card, scoped after a short intro call.

Transformation assessment

1 to 2 weeks · fixed scope

Best for: Leadership alignment before funding

· Stakeholder interviews and current-state map
· Prioritized initiative shortlist with metrics
· Recommended first pilot with explicit out-of-scope list

Architecture & governance review

2 to 3 weeks · fixed scope

Best for: Build already in flight; need a second opinion

· Written review of diagrams, APIs, and policy posture
· Facilitated workshop with engineering and risk
· Prioritized change list with owners suggested

Pilot squad

4 to 8 weeks · time & materials or capped

Best for: Prove one workflow end-to-end

· Runnable pilot in your tenant (or reference build in ours)
· Weekly steering with business and platform owners
· Handoff pack: runbooks, metrics baseline, scale playbook

Advisory retainer

Monthly · day-rate or hour bundle

Best for: Multi-initiative programs without full-time hire

· Fortnightly office hours and async design review
· Vendor and build-vs-buy sense-checks
· Pattern library updates as your program evolves

Reference implementations on this site are not a managed service, engagements are advisory plus targeted build support in your environment.
We do not resell model API spend; you keep direct relationships with OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, and Anthropic.
Fixed-scope assessments and reviews are quoted after a short intro call; pilots are scoped to one workflow and success criteria.

Outcomes we repeat

Representative result patterns from assessments and pilots (anonymized).

Architecture review or 6-week pilot

Regulated policy Q&A with source citations

Financial services, insurance, and large HR policy estates

Citation rate above 90% on an agreed golden question set
Documented unknown-answer path when retrieval is weak
Quantified lift vs general chat baseline for audit

Pilot squad with steering forum every week

Operations assistant with human approval

Support, ITSM, and CRM-adjacent workflows

Read-only access in pilot; updates only after supervisor approval
Handle time improvement on covered intents with quality sampling
Incident and override metrics in the same dashboard as cost

1 to 2 week assessment

Portfolio prioritisation and council operating model

Medium and large programmes with many AI ideas

Single intake scorecard and capped active pilots
Named champions with protected time and enablement kit
Scale / pivot / stop decisions documented per pilot

Architecture review then pilot on one squad

Platform standards and model routing

CTO office standardising models, logging, and cost

Default model per task type with documented fallback
Structured logs and eval CI on prompt or index change
Cost per successful task visible to finance monthly

2 to 3 week review alongside build team

Security and privacy gate before production

InfoSec review before an AI assistant or document Q&A goes live

Evidence pack accepted by risk (diagrams, logs, quality checks)
Pen test on tool endpoints, not chat UI only
Runbook drill for disable-tools and human fallback

Workshop plus architecture review

Copilot coexistence and custom systems of record

Microsoft-centric enterprises with M365 Copilot licensed

Channel matrix: Copilot vs custom app vs human queue
Custom work scoped to CRM/ITSM updates and cite-only document sets
Aligned retention and safety rules across channels

Proof, not promises

Use Start here to pick a path, then browse worked examples for assistants, human approval, monitoring, document Q&A, and multi-step workflows, or read types of work. For broader operating system work, The Ops Toolbox covers diagnostics and scale-up playbooks.

Next step

Plan your next pilot

Worked examples and decision guides you can run in reviews and pilots — an evidence base from The Ops Toolbox.

Email NedContact form on The Ops Toolbox

Prefer the web form? The Ops Toolbox.

One workflow, clear metrics
Your cloud, your keys
Written handoff, not dependency