# AI development agency for chatbots and automation > Source: https://prontx.com/ai-development/ | Publisher: ProntX | Last updated: 2026-10-10 ## Summary ProntX is a UK AI development agency building chatbots trained on your own content, lead qualification assistants, internal knowledge tools and workflow automation, from £2,500 ex VAT. Projects run as a discovery sprint, a measured pilot, then rollout, using OpenAI, Anthropic Claude or open models. It suits SMEs wanting practical, privacy-aware AI. Chatbots trained on your own content, internal knowledge assistants and automations for your CRM, inbox and documents. Piloted, measured and built with UK GDPR in mind. ProntX is an AI development agency that builds practical tools for UK businesses: chatbots trained on your own content, assistants that answer staff questions, and automations that take repetitive work out of your CRM, inbox and documents. Projects start from £2,500, begin with a short discovery sprint and go live as a measured pilot before wider rollout. ### Useful AI, not a demo It is easy to build an impressive chatbot demo in an afternoon. It is much harder to build one that gives correct answers about your products, knows when to hand over to a person, respects data protection law and keeps working when your prices change. That second kind is what we build. ### Start with the work, not the model We begin by finding tasks where AI genuinely saves time or improves service: questions your team answers twenty times a day, enquiries that need sorting before a salesperson sees them, documents someone retypes into a system. If a task is better solved with a simple form or a rule, we will tell you that instead. What we build ## What can an AI development agency build for your business? Most of our work falls into six categories, from customer-facing chatbots to internal agents that prepare work for a human to approve. Customers ### Customer service chatbots Answer common questions on your website or WhatsApp around the clock, check order or booking status through your systems, and pass complex cases to your team with the full conversation attached. Sales ### Lead qualification assistants Ask the questions your sales team would ask, score the enquiry, book a call for good-fit leads and log everything in your CRM, so nobody spends time on enquiries you cannot serve. Knowledge ### Assistants trained on your content Answers drawn from your website, help centre, policies and product documents, with links to the source so customers and staff can check. Teams ### Internal knowledge assistants A private assistant for staff that searches handbooks, procedures, contracts and past proposals, with access limited by role. Operations ### Workflow automation Classify and draft replies to emails, extract data from invoices and forms, update CRM records and produce routine reports automatically. Agents ### AI agents with approval steps Multi-step agents that research, prepare and draft, then pause for a person to approve before anything is sent, paid or changed. Chatbots ## How does AI chatbot development with your own content work? We use retrieval-augmented generation (RAG): the chatbot looks up relevant passages from your approved content first, then writes an answer based only on those passages. That keeps answers specific to your business and far less likely to be made up. ### What happens behind the scenes Your content (web pages, PDFs, help articles, product data) is split into sections and indexed. When someone asks a question, the system finds the most relevant sections, passes them to the language model with clear instructions, and returns an answer with links to the sources. If nothing relevant is found, it says so and offers a human handover rather than guessing. ### Keeping it accurate over time Content changes, so we set up automatic re-indexing when your site or documents update. We also build a test set of real questions with approved answers, and run it every time we change prompts, models or content, so quality does not quietly slip. You get a dashboard of conversations to review and flag. - Answers grounded in your approved sources, with citations - Tone of voice and boundaries agreed with you - Human handover by live chat, email or ticket - Works on your website, WhatsApp or inside your app - Connects to booking, order or CRM systems where useful - Conversation logs and feedback for continuous improvement Automation ## What can an AI automation agency in the UK automate for you? Good candidates are tasks that are frequent, follow a recognisable pattern and currently involve someone reading text and typing it somewhere else. We keep a person in the loop wherever a mistake would matter. | Task | What the AI does | Where a person stays involved | | Inbound email | Sorts by type and urgency, drafts replies from your knowledge base | Approves or edits drafts before sending | | New enquiries | Enriches the lead, scores fit, creates the CRM record and task | Sales reviews scored leads and takes the call | | Invoices and forms | Extracts fields from PDFs and scans into your accounts or job system | Checks low-confidence fields flagged by the system | | Proposals and reports | Assembles first drafts from templates, past work and live data | Edits, signs off and sends | | Meeting notes | Summarises calls, extracts actions and updates the CRM | Owner confirms actions and deadlines | We connect to the tools you already use, such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Xero and Slack, through their official APIs or automation platforms like Make, Zapier or n8n. Where no integration exists, we build a small, documented service that you own. Automation also pairs well with [email marketing](/email-marketing/): an assistant can tag new subscribers by interest from what they ask, so the follow-up sequence they receive matches what they actually need. Privacy and control ## Is AI safe to use with customer data under UK GDPR? It can be, if it is designed carefully. We build with data minimisation, clear access controls and providers configured so your data is not used to train their models, and we help you document the processing for UK GDPR. - Only the data each task needs is sent to the model - Personal data redacted or masked where possible - Provider settings that exclude your data from model training - UK or EU data residency options where available - Role-based access for internal assistants - Logs and audit trails of what the AI did and why We help you prepare the information for a data protection impact assessment, update privacy notices to explain AI use, and design clear disclosure so customers know when they are talking to an assistant. Agents that can take actions always have limits on what they can do alone and an approval step for anything that sends money, emails customers or changes records in bulk. We are not lawyers, so for high-risk processing we recommend your data protection adviser reviews the design, and we will work with them directly. Models ## Which AI models do you use? We are model-agnostic. We work with OpenAI, Anthropic Claude and open models such as Llama and Mistral, and choose per task based on accuracy, speed, cost and where data can be processed. Hosted ### OpenAI and Anthropic Claude Strong general reasoning and writing for chatbots, drafting and complex agents, accessed through business APIs with suitable data terms. Open ### Open-weight models Useful when data must stay on your own infrastructure or when high volumes make per-request pricing expensive. Flexible ### No lock-in We build a thin layer between your system and the model, so you can switch provider as prices and capabilities change without a rebuild. How we deliver ## How does an AI project run from idea to rollout? In three stages: a discovery sprint to pick the right use case, a pilot with real users and clear success measures, then a wider rollout once the numbers justify it. Stage 1 ### Discovery sprint We map the process, review your data and content, estimate time or cost savings, check privacy implications and agree what success looks like. You get a written plan and fixed quote for the pilot. Stage 2 ### Pilot A working version used by a small group of staff or a share of customers, with logging, a test set and weekly reviews. Most problems surface here, cheaply. Stage 3 ### Rollout and support Wider launch, staff training, monitoring and a monthly review of accuracy, cost and usage, with improvements prioritised from real conversations. ### How we measure whether it works Every project has numbers agreed before the pilot starts. For a customer chatbot that might be the share of conversations resolved without a handover, answer accuracy against the test set and customer satisfaction ratings. For automation it is time saved per task, error rates and turnaround times. For lead qualification it is response time and the share of booked calls that turn into real opportunities. If the pilot does not meet the agreed bar, we change course or stop, and you have not committed to a full rollout. Pricing ## How much does AI chatbot or automation development cost? ProntX AI projects start at £2,500 ex VAT for a focused chatbot or single automation. Multi-system automations and assistants typically cost £5,000 to £15,000, and custom agents are quoted after discovery. Model usage is billed by the provider and is usually modest for SME volumes. | Project | Price (ex VAT) | Typical scope | | Focused chatbot or automation | From £2,500 | One use case, one knowledge source or workflow, website or inbox integration, test set and handover | | Business assistant or multi-step automation | Typically £5,000 to £15,000 | Several sources or systems, CRM integration, role-based access, reporting dashboard | | Custom AI agents | Quote | Multi-step agents with approvals, custom back ends, self-hosted models or strict compliance needs | Most requested AI chatbot or automation from £2,500 one-off Assistants and workflows trained on your data [What is included ](https://prontx.com/ai-development/) Mobile app MVP from £9,500 one-off iOS and Android from one codebase [What is included ](https://prontx.com/app-development/) Website design from £1,950 one-off Fast, SEO-ready business websites [What is included ](https://prontx.com/web-design/) One team ## Why work with ProntX on AI? Because the same team builds your website, apps and marketing, the AI tools we create plug into how you already win and serve customers. A lead qualification bot is more useful when it is wired into the landing pages and ads that generate the leads. A customer assistant works better inside a well-built [website](/web-design/) or [mobile app](/app-development/). We have served more than 200 clients over six years, and we bring that marketing and build experience to every AI project. Building tools that use AI is different from getting your brand cited by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. If that is your goal, see our [AI search optimisation](/seo/ai-search-optimisation/) service. Not sure where AI fits in your business? Describe the problem on our [contact page](/contact/) and we will reply within one working day with honest suggestions. ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does it cost to build an AI chatbot? A focused AI chatbot from ProntX starts at £2,500 ex VAT, covering one knowledge source, website integration, a test set of real questions and human handover. Assistants that connect to several systems typically cost £5,000 to £15,000. On top of the build, you pay the AI provider for usage, which for most small and mid-sized businesses is a modest monthly amount. ### Will the chatbot make up answers? We design against it. The chatbot retrieves answers from your approved content and is instructed to answer only from those sources, with citations. When it cannot find a reliable answer it says so and offers a handover to your team. We test accuracy against a set of real questions before launch and every time anything changes. ### Is our data used to train AI models? We configure the AI providers we use so your data is excluded from model training, using business API terms rather than consumer apps. We also send only the data each task needs and redact personal information where possible. For the most sensitive cases, we can use open models hosted on infrastructure you control. ### Which AI model is best for my project? It depends on the task. OpenAI and Anthropic Claude models are strong for conversation, drafting and reasoning, while open models suit self-hosting and high-volume tasks. During discovery we test options on your real data and compare accuracy, speed and cost. We build so you can switch models later without starting again. ### How long does an AI project take? A discovery sprint usually takes one to two weeks. A focused chatbot or automation pilot can typically be live within a few weeks after that, depending on how ready your content and system access are. Wider rollout follows once the pilot meets the success measures we agreed at the start. ### Can AI agents take actions without a person? They can, but we limit it. Low-risk steps such as tagging an email or creating a draft can be automatic. Anything that sends messages to customers, moves money or changes many records at once goes through an approval step, and every action is logged so you can see exactly what happened and why. ### Do you build AI for small businesses? Yes. Many of our AI projects are for SMEs, where a single chatbot or automation can free up hours each week. Starting from £2,500 with a pilot keeps the risk small. We will also tell you if a simpler tool, such as a better form or an off-the-shelf app, would solve the problem more cheaply. ### How is this different from AI search optimisation? AI development means building tools that use AI inside your business, such as chatbots and automations. AI search optimisation is about making your brand visible and accurately described in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. We offer both, and you can read about the second on our AI search optimisation page. ## Price From £2,500 per project plus VAT. Full pricing: https://prontx.com/pricing/ ## Contact Free growth audit: https://prontx.com/free-audit/ | Phone: 020 3048 4022 | Email: info@prontx.com