A working diary showing transparency, real data and national urgency · by me · begun 13 July 2026

Updated 21 Jul 2026 · 17:17 BST

9

Days in the openlive, since 13 Jul

3.4

Hours a dayon average, logged

0

Businesses reachedcounting from zero

Days & date update live · hours and businesses updated by hand — the stamp above shows how fresh they are

A non-technical and autistic Founder & CEO learns AI.

Britain's small businesses are FALLING furthest behind (that's 5.64 million businesses just like yours)

3× behind: small firms use AI at 11.9%, large firms at 40% — and up to £140bn of UK growth by 2030 rides on closing that gap (OECD).

Welcome to my AI adoption diary 🇬🇧

small business = up to £10m turnover

Read week one ↓then follow along

Non-Tech CEO · Founder & CEO of a small UK business writing in the open — I'll introduce myself properly further in →
portrait held back
— revealed later —
Must try harder! :)
Click here to read my personal personality profile → the honest version — flaws and all. if I can do it, anyone can.

The way I think

Creative, lateral, neurodivergent. I'm genuinely poor with tech — but I see the shape of things differently.

What you can check

SOPs. Data-driven processes. Automations running. A business getting visibly sharper.

If I can do it.. you can.

Pressed into the journal

Tuesday 21 July 2026

🇬🇧The National Picture🇬🇧

Britain · 2026 · the case for adopting, fast

The edge isn't inventing AI — it's using it, and most firms haven't started. Across politics and the Western alliance, that's the agreed message. But the gains only land when ordinary firms adopt — and there the gap is brutal: the OECD finds just 11.9% of small firms use AI, against ~40% of large ones — the widest gap of any digital technology.

UK Government · 2026

Make Britain the fastest-adopting AI economy in the G7 — the shift now is from ambition to adoption.

gov.uk — AI Adoption Summit & Chancellor's Mais Lecture

Former PM · Conservative

The race is won on adoption, not invention — everyday take-up keeps a country competitive.

Rishi Sunak, as reported, 2025

NATO · 32 allies

Accelerate and mainstream AI adoption across the alliance.

NATO Revised AI Strategy, nato.int

The adoption of technology has always pushed nations forward — and forward together only when ordinary people get the tools.

The scoreboard

3×

the adoption gap: ~40% of large firms use AI, just 11.9% of small ones — the widest of any digital tech.

OECD, 2025
24×

more private AI investment in the US than the UK ($109bn vs £4.5bn, 2024).

Stanford HAI, 2025
1–14%

AI's credible boost to GDP — the honest range, sceptic to bull.

Acemoglu (NBER) · PwC
40%

of jobs worldwide exposed to AI — the stakes cut both ways.

IMF, 2024

An independent project. Not affiliated with, funded by, or endorsed by any government or public body — just one founder answering the national call. Figures are 2026 estimates and forecasts, not settled fact.

Who this is really about

Small business isn't small

The firms furthest behind on AI are the ones the country actually runs on.

99.9%

of UK businesses are SMEs — 5.69 million of them.

Business Population Estimates 2025
16.6m

people employed by SMEs — 60% of all private-sector jobs.

DBT, 2024
£2.8tn

SME turnover — 52% of the private-sector economy.

DBT, 2024
£300bn+

the UK's annual business tax bill — SMEs a huge share of it.

CBI, 2024/25

Small firms alone account for 13 million jobs and £1.8tn of turnover — and they're the ones stuck at 11.9% AI use. Sources: UK Business Population Estimates 2025 (Dept for Business & Trade); CBI.

What the build shows

What I'm keeping a record of

Watch one ordinary business cross the AI gap — so yours can too.

Ground zero to now

The journal, week one

Only 11.9% of small firms use AI. This is the diary of becoming one of them — each entry in two halves: how I approached it, and what it produced.

13 Jul2026

Stage 01 · Ground zero

Starting from nothing

Aim Stand up an AI operating system from a blank folder.

The way I think

No code, no background, and I find this genuinely hard. I started anyway.

What you can check

The OS folder created; master instructions written; first sessions done.

17–19 Jul2026

Stage 02 · The brain

Giving the AI a real memory

Aim A sourced, business-specific brain — no guessing.

The way I think

I refused to let it work from assumptions. Evidence over answers that merely sound right.

What you can check

A full context brain, a sourced methods library, a rules engine that learns from every correction.

19–20 Jul2026

Stage 03 · Method & guardrails

Making how I think repeatable

Aim Turn a creative process into a safe, reusable system.

The way I think

My divergent, ideas-first style — usually a liability on paper — became the documented method.

What you can check

A project-interrogation pipeline, a staff-coaching design, provenance on every claim.

21 Jul2026

Stage 04 · The engine starts

AI doing real work, unattended

Aim Get the system producing on its own, not just on command.

The way I think

The man who's "terrible with tech" now has AI working for him while he sleeps.

What you can check

A live weekly AI digest running itself, a scored benchmark, a quarterly forecast, a real task shipped.

21 Jul2026

Stage 05 · Skills as assets

Turning what I do into tools

Aim Make the tools findable — and turn my own repeated work into skills I could one day license.

The way I think

It clicked that the way I work — even how I decide — is itself something that can be captured. Who I am becomes a tool.

What you can check

A plain-English menu of every skill; my first skill built from my own method; and new skills brought in safely through a security scan I set up.

Same work, new tools

The last revolution, and this one

Every leap forward was built the same way — by ordinary people picking up the tools of their age.

18th-century timber carpentry roof frame, engraving from Diderot's Encyclopédie, 1751-1772

Built the last one18th century · Diderot's Encyclopédie · public domain

same spirit,
new tools
Your photograph here
the workshop · the tools · you
— to add —

Building this one2026 · the AI revolution