AI automation services
AI consultant for small business: automate the manual work first
By Yash Soni, Founder & CEO, Apex36Updated
In short
An AI consultant for a small business finds the repetitive work that eats your team's week, such as inbox sorting, documents, invoices and reports, and replaces it with software that uses AI where it pays. Apex36 starts with a free AI readiness assessment and builds your first automated workflow from $5,000. You own the code.
Key facts
| Starting price | First workflow from $5,000 |
|---|---|
| Typical timeline | Assessment report by email within 48 hours; first workflow typically live in 2 to 4 weeks |
| Engagement model | Free assessment, then a fixed-price first workflow, then optional monthly support |
| Markets | US, UK, Australia, Singapore, UAE |
| Stack | Microsoft 365 and Outlook, Gmail, Excel, Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, AWS serverless, OpenAI and Claude |
What does an AI consultant do for a small business?
A good AI consultant starts with your work, not with AI. We sit with the people doing the task, write down each step, and mark which steps are repetitive, rule-based or reading-heavy. Those are the ones software and AI handle well. Then we build the automation, test it on your real data and keep a person in the loop where judgement matters.
Start with a free AI readiness assessment
Answer five questions about your business, data and tools in our free AI readiness assessment. A person on our team reviews your answers and emails you a written report within 48 hours: the workflows worth automating first, the ones to leave alone, and whether your data is ready.
Typical first automations
- Inbox triage: sort, label and route incoming email, and draft replies for review
- Document handling: pull fields out of PDFs, forms and scans into your systems
- Invoices and purchase orders: check, match and prepare them before they reach your accounting or ERP system
- Reporting: replace the weekly spreadsheet someone builds by hand with a report that builds itself
- Spreadsheet to software: turn the spreadsheet your team runs on into a simple web app with logins and an audit trail
AI automation services you own
No-code tools are fine for simple flows. When a workflow touches several systems, needs an audit trail or handles sensitive data, we build it as software in your own cloud account. You own the code, there is no per-task fee to a platform, and every automated step is logged so you can see what happened and why.
What it costs
Your first automated workflow starts at $5,000, built and running on your data. The assessment before it is free. After launch, you can keep us on monthly support or take the code in-house. AI model and cloud costs are billed to your own accounts, and we size them before you commit.
Proof from our work
Inbox automation pilot for a global pharma company
An enterprise mailbox classified and routed into folders with 268 custom rules and 60 destination folders: about 2,244 emails processed in the pilot, averaging 40 seconds from received to resolved, with an audit trail per email. Pilot.
Spreadsheet to software (pilot)
For an Australian pharmacovigilance operator, we turned a weekly manual spreadsheet screening process into audited software that reproduces their Excel tracker to the cell. Pilot.
Procurement pre-processing for a US enterprise automaker
Serverless AWS automations that prepare and validate data before SAP and Coupa ingestion, removing manual pre-tasks. Part of a programme targeting USD 50M a year in savings.
HealthTech · Staffing
United Medical
Hospital-doctor contract workflows moved into software for a German healthcare company, on a running retainer.
Read the case study
What clients say about working with us
“Willing to discuss ideas and recommend technical solutions rather than simply taking instructions... challenges assumptions when appropriate, and focuses on creating a scalable solution instead of quick fixes.”
“He excels in his work, is professional in demeanor, and extremely reliable. Highly recommended.”
Frequently asked questions
An AI consultant finds the repetitive work in your business, such as email, documents, invoices and reports, and replaces it with software that uses AI where it helps. At Apex36 the same team that advises also builds and runs the automation.
At Apex36 the readiness assessment is free, and a first automated workflow starts at $5,000. Monthly support after launch is optional. You get a fixed price in writing before any build starts.
Start with work that is frequent, rule-based and annoying: sorting the inbox, copying data out of documents, checking invoices, building the weekly report. These pay back fastest and carry the least risk.
No. Most first automations work on the email, PDFs and spreadsheets you already have. The assessment tells you which data is usable now and what to fix first.
It is worth it when a task takes hours every week and follows a pattern. If a task happens once a month or needs careful judgement each time, we will tell you to leave it manual.
For simple two-step flows, a no-code tool can be enough and we will say so. For workflows across several systems, with sensitive data or an audit trail, we build custom software you own.
Find out what to build first
Start with the free AI readiness assessment and get a written report by email, or book a 30-minute strategy call with the founder.