Tenhaw vs AI boutiques
Most are strategy firms or build shops. We are neither.
- Pre-2023 transformation record. AI boutiques: Often none
- A decade, 12 case studies
- Builds and owns adoption. AI boutiques: One or the other
- Both, in one squad
- Deep ML research bench. AI boutiques: Often yes
- No, we partner
The short answer: Tenhaw or AI boutiques
The boutique AI consulting market splits roughly into strategy firms that produce excellent thinking but do not build, and AI build shops that ship impressive prototypes but do not change how the organisation works. Tenhaw sits deliberately between them: forward-deployed operators who redesign the operating model and ship the systems, backed by a decade of landing delivery transformation at HSBC, Microsoft, F1 and Anglo American. If a firm cannot show you production systems and organisational change that outlived their involvement, they are one of the two halves, not both. The UK firms a shortlist usually reaches are Faculty, Mind Foundry, Aiimi, Advancing Analytics, Kortical and Datasparq, each described below from its own published positioning. Several of them publish claims to systems already deployed and we do not: our agentic evidence is working proofs of concept, the flagship built inside a live regulated insurer and now being productionised.
The case for other boutique AI consultancies
Weigh these first. They are real advantages, and on some programmes they are the deciding factor.
- Strategy-led boutiques often have deeper research and sharper market framing
- Build-led shops frequently have stronger pure ML and platform engineering benches
- Many are cheaper than Tenhaw for a narrowly scoped piece of work
- Specialists in a single vertical can bring domain knowledge we would take weeks to acquire
Which should you choose?
There is a real answer here, and it is not always us.
Tenhaw
is the right call when:
- Your pilots worked and then failed to scale past the team that built them
- You need the org design and the engineering handled by the same people
- Adoption, not capability, is the thing that is actually blocking you
- You need someone who has managed transformation politics inside a 100,000-person organisation
AI boutiques
is the right call when:
- You need a specific model built or fine-tuned and your operating model is not in question
- You want market research or a competitive thesis rather than organisational change
- You have deep vertical requirements (clinical, legal, quantitative) where domain specialists lead
- Budget is constrained and the scope is one team rather than an organisation
If that is you, say so on the call and we will tell you the same thing. It is cheaper for both of us than finding out in month three.
Prefer to talk it through? Ask us on a discovery call →
Where the models differ
The differences that change what you get, rather than adjectives.
- 01
Strategy firms versus build shops versus us
TenhawWe redesign the operating model and ship the systems, because separating them is why most agentic programmes stall. The operating model tells you which decisions move to agents; the engineering makes those decisions real; adoption work makes people use it.
AI boutiquesStrategy boutiques hand over a thesis and a roadmap and depart before implementation. Build shops deliver working software into an organisation whose roles, incentives and governance are unchanged, which is why the software often goes unused six months later.
- 02
Track record before AI
TenhawA decade of landing delivery transformation at HSBC, Microsoft, Sky, F1, Discovery, Greggs, Yondr and Anglo American, across twelve engagements written up in full, including a live agentic engagement, with checkable outcomes. Agentic transformation is a change programme with AI in it, and the change discipline is the part most firms lack.
AI boutiquesMany AI boutiques were founded after 2023. Strong technical benches, genuine enthusiasm, and frequently no experience of making thousands of people work differently, which is the part that fails.
- 03
What happens when the politics start
TenhawManaging the politics is an explicit part of the Embedded Agentic Lead role, not an unfortunate distraction from it. Transformations stall on incentives and territory far more often than on technology.
AI boutiquesTechnical firms typically treat organisational resistance as out of scope, escalate it to the sponsor, and continue building. The sponsor was usually hoping the supplier would handle it.
- 04
The UK firms a shortlist reaches, by name
TenhawOne thing: rebuilding how organisations work around AI agents, with the operating model, the engineering and the adoption in the same squad, informed by a decade of landing delivery transformation. We hold no research bench, we sell no product and no licence, and we take no margin on models or platforms. Our agentic evidence is working proofs of concept, the flagship now being productionised inside a regulated insurer. On a straight capability comparison against several of the firms opposite, we lose on deployed systems and on depth of pure machine learning.
AI boutiquesSix UK firms, described only as each describes itself, checked against its own site in July 2026. Faculty, London, positions itself around applied AI across sectors including defence, national security, health and financial services, and runs a fellowship programme that is a talent pipeline as much as a service line. Mind Foundry, Oxford, is a university spinout founded by Oxford machine learning professors, now leading with machine learning for defence and national security behind named products. Aiimi, Milton Keynes, sells its own platform alongside services and leads with enterprise data, search and governance. Advancing Analytics, London, is a partner-led data and AI engineering firm, an elite Databricks partner and a Microsoft advanced specialist, with its own accelerators. Kortical, London, describes itself as an AI platform and consulting business building enterprise agents end to end on its own platform. Datasparq describes itself as a UK data and AI consultancy covering strategy and implementation. Three of those six sell a product or platform of their own, which is a different commercial relationship from ours and not a worse one: it means part of what you buy keeps improving without you paying for it, and part of your architecture is theirs.
Tenhaw and AI boutiques, dimension by dimension
| Dimension | Tenhaw | AI boutiques |
|---|---|---|
| Production agentic deployments to reference | None in production yet: a regulated-estate proof of concept is productionising now | Several publish deployed systems |
| Own platform or product | No. We take no margin on licences | Three of the six named |
| Redesigns operating model | Yes | Strategy firms only |
| Builds and owns adoption | Both, in one squad | One or the other |
| Owns adoption and change | Yes | Rarely |
| Pre-2023 transformation record | A decade, 12 case studies | Often none |
| Embeds with real decision rights | Yes | Uncommon |
| Deep ML research bench | No, we partner | Often yes |
| Published pricing | Yes | Rarely |
Some rows in that table go against us. They stay in it, because a comparison you cannot lose is a comparison nobody should believe.
- Faculty
Read 26 July 2026. Source of the London base and the sector list, and of the fellowship programme running alongside the services business.
- Mind Foundry
Read 26 July 2026. Source of the Oxford base, the university spinout founded by Oxford machine learning professors, the defence and national security positioning and the named products.
- Aiimi
Read 26 July 2026. Source of the Milton Keynes base and of the platform-plus-services shape across enterprise data, search and governance.
- Advancing Analytics
Read 26 July 2026. Source of the London base and of the elite Databricks partner and Microsoft advanced specialist claims.
- Kortical
Read 26 July 2026. Source of the London base and of the platform-and-consulting positioning around building enterprise agents end to end.
- Datasparq
Read 26 July 2026. Source of the UK data and AI consultancy positioning covering strategy and implementation. Their homepage does not state a city, so this page does not either.
What a small supplier can evidence
Scale buys an assurance position that clears legal without a conversation. We publish ours in full: what is in place, and what is not yet.
- UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 compliant, as a UK-registered company
- DPA with sub-processor annex available for every engagement
- 24-hour personal data breach notification, committed in the Data Processing Agreement
- UK data processing by default, with EU residency available where an engagement requires it
- Engagement sub-processor list published on the security page and annexed to the DPA
- BS7858-standard personnel screening before client access
- No-substitution commitment written into the SOW: the people on an engagement are not changed without the client's written agreement
- Named-tool-only policy for AI systems touching client data
- Professional indemnity £1m, employers' liability £10m, public liability £1m, cyber £25k, legal expenses £100k
- Cyber Essentials Plus: certification in progress
- ISO 27001: gap assessment complete, certification targeted for 2027
- ISO/IEC 42001 (AI management systems), under assessment, and increasingly the one clients ask for
- SOC 2 Type II: will follow ISO 27001 where clients require it
If your supplier floor requires certification we do not hold today, that is a real reason to buy elsewhere. The full position, including the DPA and the sub-processor annex, is on the security page.
Questions buyers ask us
What makes an AI transformation consultancy different from an AI build shop?
A build shop delivers working AI software. A transformation consultancy changes how the organisation operates so that software is actually adopted: redefining roles, moving decision rights, rewriting governance and managing the resistance that follows. Most failed agentic programmes have working technology and an unchanged organisation.
How do we evaluate an AI consultancy?
Ask for named clients with checkable outcomes, not anonymised logos. Ask who specifically will be in the room and what they personally delivered. Ask what happened after they left the last three engagements. Ask whether they will publish a price. Ask what they would decline to do. Firms that cannot answer those five questions concretely are usually selling capacity rather than capability.
Why does prior non-AI transformation experience matter?
Because agentic transformation is a change programme with AI in it. The hard parts (moving decision rights, redesigning roles, managing incentive conflict, sustaining adoption past the initial enthusiasm) are the same problems delivery transformation has always faced. A firm that has never made ten thousand people work differently will meet those problems for the first time on your programme.
Is Tenhaw the cheapest option?
No. For a narrowly scoped technical build, a specialist shop will usually be cheaper and often better. Tenhaw is priced for organisation-level change where the operating model, the engineering and the adoption all have to move together.
Which UK AI consultancies should we shortlist alongside Tenhaw?
Six come up repeatedly, and they are different shapes rather than six versions of the same firm. Faculty, in London, works across sectors including defence, national security, health and financial services and runs a fellowship programme alongside its services. Mind Foundry, in Oxford, is a university spinout founded by Oxford machine learning professors and now leads with machine learning for defence and national security behind named products. Aiimi, in Milton Keynes, sells its own platform alongside services and leads with enterprise data, search and governance. Advancing Analytics, in London, is a partner-led data and AI engineering firm, an elite Databricks partner and a Microsoft advanced specialist. Kortical, in London, sells an AI platform and consulting together and describes building enterprise agents end to end on it. Datasparq describes itself as a UK data and AI consultancy covering strategy and implementation. Those descriptions come from each firm's own published material, and we make no claim about their quality. The three questions worth asking all seven of us in the same words are: which of your people will be in the room and what did they personally deliver, can we speak to a client running what you built in production, and what would you decline to do. Our own answer to the second one is no, not yet, and you should weigh that.
What is the difference between an AI product company and an AI consultancy?
Who owns the thing at the end, and where the supplier's margin comes from. A firm selling its own platform has a commercial interest in your architecture running on it. That cuts both ways: part of what you buy keeps improving without you paying for it, and part of your estate is now theirs to version. Three of the six UK firms named on this page sell a platform or product of their own. Tenhaw does not sell a product, does not resell models, platforms or licences, and takes no margin on any of them, so no part of your run cost is revenue for us. The trade is that we have no compounding asset to amortise, which is one reason we are not the cheapest per day. Ask any supplier what you would be able to change a year after they leave, without them.
The other options you are weighing
Build it, buy it, or have someone build it with you
Every comparison in this section assumes you should be buying a supplier at all. If the workflow is not differentiated, the answer is a product and none of these pages apply. Three routes, what each is best at, and the four questions that settle it.
Buy the product when being average at this workflow would cost you nothing. Build it yourself when the workflow is part of how you compete and you already have engineers who can carry evaluation, monitoring and model upgrades as a standing job rather than a project.
Tenhaw vs Big Four
Same ambition. Very different delivery model.
Tenhaw vs Offshore partners
Cheaper per head, and that is the point of it.
Tenhaw vs Contractors
Cheaper per day, and right whenever you already have someone to direct them.
Tenhaw vs Hiring in-house
You should hire. The question is what happens in the meantime.
Tenhaw vs Internal taskforce
The cheapest option, and the one that most often stalls at pilot.
How to put this to your board
Four things you can lift straight into a paper. None of them is an adjective, and every one of them is published on this site before you ask for it.
- 01
The price is published before the first conversation
£30,000 to £90,000 fixed for the Agent-Readiness Audit, against the £150,000 to £500,000 a large firm typically prices an equivalent assessment at. The rate card behind our figure, and the large firms' own published framework rates, are on the pricing page, so the arithmetic can be checked. - 02
The engagement is contracted to end, and to leave a permanent team behind
The exit date is agreed at kickoff rather than negotiated at the end, recruiting your permanent team is a stated deliverable, and you own all work product and code on payment. - 03
The people are senior, screened and not substitutable
Everyone on the engagement is someone James Rooney has already delivered alongside, screened to BS7858 standard before any client access, and not substituted without your written agreement. A squad of three, so the people you meet are the whole team rather than the top of a pyramid. - 04
The assurance position is published, including what is not yet held
Professional indemnity £1m, employers' liability £10m, public liability £1m, cyber £25k, legal expenses £100k, with certificates shared during onboarding. Cover levels can be increased for a specific engagement where your supplier standard requires it. Raise it on the first call and we will price the increase into the engagement. Cyber Essentials Plus is in progress and ISO 27001 is targeted for 2027. The full position is on the security page.
Board optics is the one row in the triage table where we do not come out ahead. Ours requires a case, which is why the case is written down here rather than assembled on a call.
Let's talk about where your organisation is headed.
A 30-minute discovery call with James Rooney. We'll cover where your organisation sits on the agentic curve and which rung to start on. You'll leave with a rough scope whether you engage us or not.
Most organisations start with a fixed-price Agent-Readiness Audit · £30k–£90k · 6–8 weeks