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The repetitive work that eats a week. Customer questions, quotes, invoices, onboarding and the admin nobody wants to do, running without a person in the middle.
AI automation here means putting a system on the work a person currently does by hand and by memory. It covers chatbots that answer customers, automations that move information between the tools you already use, and an audit that decides which of those is worth building. It is implementation, not research.
Who this is for
Businesses where the same work happens over and over by hand, and the hand belongs to someone expensive. Usually one of three situations: a team answering the same forty questions every week, information being copied between two systems that do not talk to each other, or an owner about to hire somebody mainly to do admin.
What I build
- AI chatbots and support agentsAn assistant trained on your own business that answers customers, qualifies enquiries and handles the questions your team answers constantly. On your website, on WhatsApp, or both. It hands over to a person when it should, and it is told plainly what it does not know.
- Workflow automationThe copying between systems. Quotes, invoices, onboarding, scheduling, reporting and follow-ups, moved without somebody retyping them. Built on the tools you already pay for rather than a new platform your team has to learn.
- AI audits and roadmapsBefore anything is built: where the hours actually go, what is worth automating, what is not, and what each piece would cost. Written down, and yours to act on with or without me.
It starts with a paid pilot
We pick one workflow, usually the most expensive and least interesting thing your team does. I build that one, for a fixed fee agreed in writing, and it runs alongside your manual process until it matches.
If it does not do what we agreed it would do, you do not go on to the full build and you owe nothing further. That is the whole reason to start small: you find out whether this works on your actual data, in your actual business, before committing to anything larger.
What it costs
Most engagements land between R25,000 and R60,000, quoted in writing before anything is built. The comparison worth making is not against other software, it is against the salary you would otherwise pay to have the same work done.
A junior administrator costs R15,000 to R20,000 a month before UIF, benefits, equipment, leave, training, and the risk that they resign in month seven. The build is a one-off, it does not take leave, and it does not need managing.
That comparison is about cost, not about people. A system holds repetitive work. It does not hold judgement, relationships or anything that needs somebody to decide. Part of the audit is telling you which parts of a role are which, and I will say so if the honest answer is that you need a person.
What moves the price
- How many steps the workflow has, and how many systems it touches
- Whether those systems have a usable way to connect, or need working around
- How clean the data is. Messy data is most of the work on most projects
- Whether the chatbot needs your own documents behind it, and how much of that content exists in a usable form
- Whether you want it built once, or built and maintained
What you get at the end
- The working system, running on your own accounts
- Documentation, access and credentials handed over. You own it outright, and there is nothing rented from me monthly
- A recorded walkthrough for whoever on your team will use it
- Thirty days of fixes after handover
What I am not going to claim
I have not published an AI engagement yet, so there is no case study on this page and there is no percentage attached to anything. When there is one, it will appear with the client's permission and a source attached, the same way every other figure on this site does.
What I can point at is the adjacent record: I built a sixteen-file digital product and the Shopify store it sells from, end to end, and the store you are reading is that build. Automation work is the same discipline applied to a business process instead of a product.
I also will not tell you AI will replace your staff. It will not. What it does well is take the parts of a job that a person resents doing, which is usually the part that gets postponed and then done badly at month end.
Common questions
What does an AI chatbot for a small business actually do?
It answers the questions your team answers over and over. Trained on your own pricing, policies and documents, it handles enquiries on your website or on WhatsApp, qualifies leads, and hands over to a person when the question needs one. It is told plainly what it does not know.
How much does AI automation cost in South Africa?
Most engagements here land between R25,000 and R60,000, quoted in writing before anything is built. The comparison worth making is against salary: a junior administrator costs R15,000 to R20,000 a month, so R180,000 to R240,000 in a first year, before benefits and equipment.
Do I have to replace the software I already use?
No. The work is integration, not migration. Automations are built on the tools you already pay for and your team already knows, because a system that requires everyone to learn a new platform usually gets abandoned in month two.
What happens if the pilot does not work?
You do not proceed to the full build and you owe nothing further. The pilot is a fixed fee on one workflow, and it runs alongside your existing manual process until it matches. That is the point of starting small rather than committing to a full rollout.
Will AI automation replace my staff?
No, and anyone promising that is selling you something. A system holds repetitive work: the copying, the retyping, the same forty answers. It does not hold judgement, relationships or decisions. Part of the audit is telling you which parts of a role are which.
How long does a build take?
It depends on how many systems the workflow touches and how clean the data is, which is why a date is agreed in the written scope rather than promised up front. Messy data is the largest variable on most projects, and it is assessed during the audit.
Who owns the system afterwards?
You do, outright. Documentation, access and credentials are handed over at the end, and everything runs on your own accounts. There is no monthly rental to keep it working, and nothing stops functioning if you stop working with this studio.
Do you build custom AI models?
No. This is implementation and integration of existing AI tooling into a business, not machine-learning research or custom model training. If your problem genuinely needs a trained model, that is worth knowing early, and you will be told so rather than sold an approximation.
How it starts
Tell me what the work is, who does it now, and roughly how many hours a week it takes. If it is worth automating I will tell you what the pilot would cover and what it would cost. If it is not, I will tell you that instead, and that conversation costs nothing.
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Last reviewed: 22 September 2026. Prices and the pilot terms on this page are current as at that date.