About The AI Foundry

A UK business
helping other UK businesses.

The AI Foundry is a UK business that helps other UK businesses use AI properly. No hype, no jargon, no software you don’t need.

We’re four founders. We’ve spent careers in enterprise technology, business operations and content. We’ve seen what happens when businesses are sold AI as a magic answer. And what happens when they’re given the practical tools to actually use it. We built The AI Foundry to do the second thing.

How we got here

Eighteen months ago.
Everyone was asking.

The four founders of The AI Foundry, a UK AI training and consulting company

Eighteen months ago, every business owner we knew was being asked the same question: “what’s your AI plan?” Most of them didn’t have one. The ones who had tried something had bought a tool, given it to their team and watched it gather dust.

Between us we’d been on both sides of this for years. Building enterprise technology that customers couldn’t actually use. Sitting in training sessions that delivered slides not skills. Watching businesses spend on consultants who walked away with the cheque and left a deck behind.

We started The AI Foundry to do something different. Take what we’d learned about how people actually adopt new technology, mix it with the brand new world of generative AI and build a business that solves the real problem. Not “do you know what AI is” but “is your business genuinely getting value from it”.

We’re still early. We run training. We host events. We publish a newsletter. We have a growing community of UK business owners and leaders who are working it out alongside us. It’s the company we wished existed when each of us first started looking for help with AI.

START WITH THE PROBLEM ✦ NOT THE TOOL ✦ ADOPTION BEATS STRATEGY ✦ PLAIN ENGLISH IS NON-NEGOTIABLE ✦ INDEPENDENCE MATTERS ✦
What we believe

Five things, said plainly.

  1. 01

    Start with the problem, not the tool.

    The fastest way to waste money on AI is to start by buying tools and looking for problems they might solve. The right order is to understand what’s slowing your business down, then choose the tools that help. We work this way ourselves. We expect it of every business we work with.

  2. 02

    Adoption beats strategy.

    Adoption with strategy beats everything. A perfect AI strategy gathering dust in a slide deck helps nobody. A team using AI without any framework eventually creates more risk than value. The work that matters is doing both, in that order, properly.

  3. 03

    Real value comes from real change.

    Most AI training produces certificates. The training that produces value changes how people work. New habits, new workflows, new outputs. Skills die in three weeks if they don’t change behaviour. Behaviour change is the only outcome that matters.

  4. 04

    Plain English is non-negotiable.

    AI is genuinely complex underneath, but the value of AI to a business owner is not in the complexity. If we can’t explain something in plain English, we don’t yet understand it well enough to teach it.

  5. 05

    Independence matters.

    We don’t take vendor money. No reseller deals, no affiliate links, no demos in disguise. If we recommend a tool, it’s because we’ve used it and it works. If the right answer for your business is not to buy anything, that’s the recommendation you’ll get.

The team

Four founders.
one job.

Richard Geary
Co-founder, The AI Foundry

Richard Geary

Richard has spent 25 years helping businesses evolve through smart alignment of people, process and technology. From enterprise roles at NetSuite (Oracle) and Salesforce, to building the B2B arm of NYC ticketing startup SeatGeek, the focus has always been the same: delivering maximum value to customers by getting the fundamentals right. He’s a keynote speaker and CPD-certified AI trainer.

At The AI Foundry, Richard leads strategy, training design and the messaging across everything from the website to the stage. He’s the one in the room asking the unpopular question: what does this actually change for the business on Monday morning?

His belief: adoption without strategy is just spending, and strategy without adoption is just paperwork. Outcome-driven, value-focused and free of the hype cycle.

LinkedIn →
Scott Evans
Co-founder, The AI Foundry

Scott Evans

Scott has spent over a decade delivering digital transformation in Financial Services and Law, working with the likes of Big Four consultancy, Bank of America, Allica and Soldo, alongside running his own events company. He’s seen firsthand what separates successful tech adoption from expensive failures, and he runs his own AI transformation agency as a CPD-certified AI trainer and consultant.

At The AI Foundry, Scott owns content, community and the We Are Foundry Weekly newsletter. He runs the live sessions, builds the workshops and keeps the community a place people actually want to spend time in. If you’ve been to a TAIF event, you’ve probably been welcomed by him.

His belief: rolling out tools without training drives chaos, not change. Clear, honest guidance, measurable outcomes and AI strategies that fit the reality of the business.

James Bowes
Co-founder, The AI Foundry

James Bowes

James spent eight years as an infantry officer before transitioning into technology, earning a degree in software engineering and working across supply chain logistics, telecommunications and SaaS. He studied artificial intelligence over 30 years ago, long before the tools could catch up with the theory, and brings that long view to every conversation.

At The AI Foundry, James owns the commercial engine. That means email campaigns, corporate outreach, tele-sales and the partnership pipeline. He’s the one making sure the right people hear what TAIF is doing, and that nobody who’s interested falls through the cracks.

His belief: the best conversations in this space start with the pain, not the product. Real problems, real businesses, real progress.

Vincent
Co-founder, The AI Foundry

Vincent

Vincent is a specialist in historic woodwork restoration with over 35 years of experience. Since founding Vincent Reed Ltd in 1989, he has worked on projects across major UK landmarks including Buckingham Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London, as well as international sites such as the Royal Fortress Qasr al-Hosn in Abu Dhabi. He consults for Historic England and Historic Royal Palaces, and founded the Heritage Buildings Association to bring professionals and enthusiasts together through a forum, podcast and YouTube channel.

At The AI Foundry, Vincent brings the visual side of the brand to life through photography and video, and opens doors across his network of business owners and heritage organisations.

He’s particularly interested in how AI can be integrated responsibly into specialist sectors, supporting better decision-making without compromising the craft and culture underneath.

What we’re building

More of what’s working.
Done better.

We’re growing a UK business around a simple idea: that AI should make real businesses work better, and the way to make that happen is to teach people properly, run real-world working sessions and build a community of people doing it alongside each other.

Right now that means a weekly newsletter, a community of business owners and leaders, a training catalogue of 18 courses across three tiers and a programme of public and private events. It’s all working. It’s also early.

What’s coming next is more events, more tailored programmes for teams that want to roll AI out properly, more resources for the people learning alongside us in the community. Honest answers about what’s working and what isn’t as we figure it out, because that’s the only way good things get built.

Join the free community
Weekly newsletter
Every Tuesday
Community
Free to join
Training tiers
Three
Events
Two formats