Hi, I’m Stuart Cole. I’m an AI consultant based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, helping founders and small teams turn AI from a vague “we should do something with this” into working systems that save time and unlock revenue.
I’m married with a couple of daughters who think they’re in charge — and let’s be honest, they are.
I’m a keen runner and can often be seen plodding around Cleeve Hill. If you’re a runner too, let’s connect on Strava.
Who’s behind Stuart Cole Consulting
I’m a one-person consultancy — there’s no faceless team or outsourced delivery here. When you get in touch, you deal with me directly, from the first phone call through to the finished system. I’ve been trading as an independent website and technology consultant based in Cheltenham since 2023, and I shifted the focus of the business fully onto practical AI and automation work in 2025 as demand from local businesses grew. Everything on this site reflects work I’ve actually done, not a template pulled from an agency deck.
How I got here
I’ve been building things for the web since 2001 — back when only 32% of UK households even had an internet connection. My first project wasn’t a friendly informational site like this one. Instead, I built an e-commerce store before banks even allowed online credit card payments. What was I thinking? But it taught me early that working code beats clever ideas.
Since then, I’ve lost count of the websites I’ve built — hundreds for clients, plus my own. I specialised in WordPress, then spent over a decade focused on SEO, navigating some of Google’s biggest algorithm updates without losing client traffic. Before all of that, I spent 15 years in software automation — streamlining business processes, removing manual steps, getting computers to do the boring bits.
That automation background is what pulls everything together now. Practical AI isn’t really a new field, it’s the next chapter in a long story about getting software to do useful work for people. The tools have changed dramatically over the last couple of years, but the questions haven’t:
- Where is this actually going to save time?
- What’s the smallest thing we can build to find out?
- How do we wire it into the systems people already use?
Why I do AI consulting now
The honest answer, the gap between “AI hype” and “AI working in a business” is bigger than it’s ever been, and that gap is full of small businesses being sold things they don’t need.
Most consultants want to write you a strategy deck. I’d rather build the prototype, watch your team use it, and tweak to make it better. I’ve earned my opinions the slow way — by shipping software for 25 years — so I can usually tell you in a 30-minute call whether what you have in mind will work or not.
What I help with
AI strategy — Where AI fits in your business, what to build first, what to ignore. A short, sharp engagement that ends with a concrete plan rather than a deck.
Build & integrate — Hands-on delivery of prototypes, internal tools, and AI features wired into the systems you already use (CRM, ops tools, email, spreadsheets). Things that get adopted because they fit how your team actually works.
Fractional AI lead — Optional one day a week embedded with your team for architecture reviews, hiring help, and the senior second opinion you don’t have in-house.
My skillset
AI strategy & evaluation — picking the right model for the job (cloud vs local, big vs small, expensive vs cheap), designing evals so you know whether it’s actually working, and avoiding the most common ways AI projects quietly fail.
Automation & integration — 15+ years of designing systems that remove manual work. AI is just the latest, most flexible tool for the job.
Practical engineering — Python, JavaScript, PHP, working with APIs from the major providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google), local model deployment with Ollama / LM Studio, and the WordPress + LAMP knowledge needed to ship into real client environments.
SEO & content — over a decade of search experience means I know what AI-generated content actually costs you, and when it’s worth the trade-off.
Plain-English communication — I write the way I talk, and I’ll explain anything technical in a way that helps you make good decisions without needing to learn what an LLM is from scratch.
A note on style
My writing style is relaxed, like chatting with a friend, and I assume the reader is new to the subject.
I don’t use buzzwords if I can help it. I’d rather tell you something is unproven than dress it up as a sure thing. If you’ve been burned by a consultant before, that probably sounds familiar.
If you think I might be a good fit, drop me a line and we’ll have a short call about what you’re trying to do. No deck, no pitch.