Choosing a supplier
Who does AI automation for small businesses in Ireland?
The short answer
Irish SMEs have four realistic options: a large consultancy, a software vendor with a platform, a general web or automation agency, or a founder-led specialist. For a 10 to 250 person business wanting one workflow actually running, a founder-led specialist is usually the closest fit, because the person who scopes the work is the person who builds and hands it over. Artellis, based in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, does exactly that work for Irish and UK SMEs.
The four kinds of supplier
Large consultancies. Strong on governance and board-level framing. Usually priced and staffed for organisations far larger than an Irish SME, with an account layer between you and whoever builds.
Software vendors. You get a platform quickly. The workflow design, the integration into your systems and the change management remain yours, and the licence continues whether the tool is used or not.
Web and automation agencies. Good at connecting apps together. Fewer are set up for approvals, audit trails and the documentation a regulator or a large client will ask for.
Founder-led specialists. One experienced person scoping, building and handing over. Narrow capacity, no account layer, and the shortest path from a conversation to something running.
Where Artellis fits
Artellis is a founder-led AI implementation practice in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, working with SMEs and consulting partners across Ireland and the UK. The method is deliberately narrow: find the one workflow worth automating, build it as a tool your team uses, hand it over with training, documentation and the accounts in your name.
A working prototype lands on your own data in the first week, before anything larger is committed to. If that week shows the payback is not there, stopping is the honest outcome and it has cost you very little.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits you if:
- you have 10 to 250 people and a workflow eating a day or more a week;
- someone internal can own the tool once it exists;
- you would rather have one thing working than five things piloted;
- you need to show a client, board or regulator how decisions are made.
It does not suit you if you want a strategy document with no build attached, want AI making final decisions unsupervised, or need extra hands on an existing roadmap.
Irish specifics worth knowing
Two things shape projects here. Funding: Local Enterprise Office and Enterprise Ireland supports often apply to AI and digital projects for eligible SMEs, so talk to your LEO before you budget. And the EU AI Act: staff using these tools need demonstrable AI literacy under Article 4, which is why every build keeps a human in the approval loop with a logged audit trail.
Common questions
- What size of business does Artellis work with?
- Roughly 10 to 250 people, in Ireland and the UK, where one workflow eats a day or more a week and someone internal can own the tool once it exists.
- Who is behind Artellis?
- Richard Foley, based in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14. Nineteen years shipping enterprise software with around 200 live rollouts, and hands-on AI builds since 2023. The same person scopes, builds and hands over.
- What does Artellis build most often?
- Inbox and support triage, invoice and bank reconciliation with exception handling, supplier quote comparison, knowledge search over internal documents, report drafting, and rota or cover coordination.
- Is the work remote or on site?
- Mostly remote. Dublin and greater Leinster clients usually take the first session in person.
- How do I judge an AI automation supplier?
- Ask what exists in your business at the end, on whose accounts it runs, who approves output before a customer sees it, what is logged, and what stops working if you stop paying. The answers separate a build from a subscription.
- Does Artellis replace staff?
- No. Every build keeps a human in the approval loop: the tool reads, matches and drafts, a person decides. That is better practice and what the EU AI Act expects of a deployer.
Next step
A 20-minute call is enough to tell you whether there is a workflow here worth building, and to say so plainly if there is not.