AI for business is already transforming how mid-market organisations improve performance, efficiency, and growth.
In this masterclass, Freeman Clarke’s technology leaders and industry experts explore how organisations are applying AI in real business environments to solve practical challenges and unlock new opportunities. From lead generation and automation to internal knowledge access and customer insight, this session focuses on measurable outcomes, not hype.
If you are looking to understand how AI for business can deliver real impact, this video provides clear, actionable insights grounded in experience.
Highlights
AI and the Jobs Market
- Discussion on news regarding AI affecting jobs (Amazon, HP, Morgan Stanley) (01:44).
- Steve discusses Klarna’s 2025 “AI first” strategy and the reality of rehiring (02:32).
- The “Auntie Betty and Uncle Brian” rule: Adoption pace is dictated by societal comfort (03:01).
- Impact on new starters: AI tools are replacing entry level “assistant” tasks (05:21).
- The shifting value of skills: Communication, empathy, and human connection remain essential (06:21).
- Case study: A 19 year old former pizza delivery driver now advising CEOs on AI (07:31).
Scenario 1: B2B Prospecting
- Focusing on the lead generation challenge in the midmarket (08:17).
- Using a “27 agent process” to analyse data and find “lookalike” customers (09:23).
- Personalised outreach: Moving beyond generic messages to research specific pain points (09:55).
- Result: Moving from an average of one sale to four sales through automated research (10:43).
- Marrying social activity (wellbeing or leadership trends) to business size for a 400% hit rate increase (11:30)
Scenario 2: Outbound Appointment Setting
- The rise of AI voice agents for transactional calls (13:54).
- Case study: A plumbing company successfully using voice agents for bookings (14:54).
- The risk of insufficient boundaries: Gerry recounts getting a car finance bot to give a margarita recipe (16:11).
- Use case: Property businesses setting appointments for visits (17:11).
- CEO insight: Logging unanswered questions from bots to identify customer frustrations, for example “noisy” audio products (19:50).
Scenario 3: Internal Knowledge Access
- Suri discusses “Agentic AI”: Digital employees that know your business data (21:19).
- Bringing together scattered data from SharePoint, Teams, and emails (22:07).
- Solving the “single expert” bottleneck where knowledge is trapped with one person (24:58).
- AI in the legal sector: Case research and predicting the propensity of a deal to win (27:31)
Scenario 4: Market and Customer Sentiment
- Steve explains how AI replaces expensive PR or research agencies for midmarket firms (29:11).
- Demonstration: A three line prompt generated a 14 page report on brand sentiment in 7 minutes (30:32).
- The shift: Agencies should now be used for planning and action, not initial desk research (31:49).
- Challenger brands: Using “mimetic research” to find gaps where competitors are not competing (33:16)
Strategic Implementation: How to Start
- Future of entry level jobs: Using AI to gather research is becoming the new baseline (36:52).
- General advice: Do not start with the tool (LLM), start with the problem you want to solve (39:11).
- The 90 Day Rule: Address a problem that everyone will notice within 90 days to build momentum (39:43).
- Where AI strategy sits: It must be driven from the top to ensure choice of focus (41:03).
- Bottom up vs top down: Enabling everyday use while pursuing strategic opportunities (46:21)
What’s Next: Agentic AI
- Defining “Agency”: Giving AI autonomy to do tasks multiple times on its own (49:42).
- The dangers: Linking AI to bank accounts or social media is still fraught with risk (52:45).
- First party agents: Microsoft’s direction of travel with out of the box research and sales agents (54:57).
- Orchestration: Running parallel streams of agents, research, design, QA, publishing, to work 100 times faster (55:26).
Governance and Closing
- The risk of running four times as fast in the wrong direction (56:56).
- Small business policy: Clear rules on not putting customer data, personal data, or passwords into external agents (57:33).
What’s next?
Understand where AI can deliver real value in your organisation. Our AI Opportunity Assessment gives you a clear, practical starting point.