For leadership and operations teams
1AYM is an AI consultancy for UK, US and Gulf organisations. We find the two or three places AI will pay back in your business, build them inside the tools your people already use, and hand them over with the controls your risk team needs.
1AYM is an OpenAI Select Partner. Our founder and principal architect holds Anthropic's Claude Certified Architect credential. Every engineer is certified on the platforms we build on or has shipped inside Silicon Valley, banking and government-scale systems, and we scale the team to the contract. We run OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini models in production, so the model choice comes from evidence, not a vendor deal. Our people are in the US and the UK, with associates around the world.
Meta, Spotify, UBS, Starling Bank, S&P Global, Sky, Viasat, Société Générale, EIB, Brainlabs and Edvantage.
Method
Three stages, in this order. Each one ends with something written down and handed over, so you can stop after any of them and still own what you paid for.
Typically two to four weeks with your sponsor and the people who do the job today. We agree what the outcome is worth, what stands in the way, and how it will be judged.
You leave with a ranked list of what to build, the architecture for it, and an investment case with real numbers in it.One real workflow, end to end, in your systems and against your data. A demonstration that skips the hard integration proves nothing, so we do not build one.
You leave with working software in your environment, and evidence of what it does.Access rules, approval gates, monitoring and training, then a staged rollout. Your team runs it. We measure adoption, cycle time and cost, so the change is reported rather than asserted.
You leave with a running system, a team that can maintain it, and numbers for the board.Offers
Five named engagements. Each one has a buyer, a stated output or a clear commercial shape, and paperwork you can put in front of procurement without a rewrite.
For C-suite and transformation leads
Fixed scope · typically 2–4 weeks
Find out which two or three workflows are worth building, what each is worth and what it would cost, before you commit a budget to any of them.
You get
For CIO, CTO, CDO, operations and finance
Fixed-scope architecture, then a production build
Turn scattered pilots into one governed place for AI to run, then put real workflows on it. Access rules, checks and human approval are built in, so the second workflow does not start from scratch the way the first one did.
You get
For engineering leaders
Typically 6–12 weeks · enablement, guardrails and CI
Your engineers are already using coding agents such as Codex and Claude Code, with or without a policy. This puts review, guardrails and CI around that, so the code it writes reaches production the same way every other change does.
You get
For scale-ups and enterprises
Retained · typically 2–3 days a week · one statement of work
Senior architecture, hands-on implementation and enablement without hiring a permanent AI platform team. We own the technical decisions, build with your engineers and leave them able to run it.
You get
For programmes that need senior capacity now
Contract · from three months · priced per day
A senior engineer, or a team, inside your programme on contract. You direct the work day to day, and we hold the standard every 1AYM engineer is hired against, plus the cover behind them.
You get
Proof
Client environments depend on this work every working day. Every figure is either the client's published case-study number or our own count or measurement on the systems we run, and each one says which.
We lead the architecture of the enterprise AI platform underneath the agency's organisation-wide AI programme. That platform is featured in a published Anthropic customer case study, which describes the platform.
What we built
We hold end-to-end technical ownership of the live production estate of a Middle East education company: the exam platform, the APIs and the data, replatformed onto Postgres 16 in Google Cloud's Doha region to meet Gulf data-residency requirements. Its IELTS speaking assessment is not one model call wrapped in a product. It is a measuring instrument, built to Ministry of Education evidence standards and in daily use by the client's own team.
What we built
Comparison
There are four ways to buy this kind of work. They differ in who writes the code, how long it takes to reach production, and what you still own once the invoice is paid. Ours included, the four checks for choosing a supplier are written up in full.
| Dimension | 1AYM | Big-4 / systems integrator | Staff augmentation | Strategy-only advisory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | Certified engineers, or engineers who shipped inside Meta, Spotify, UBS and Starling Bank. Senior, hands-on, no bench of juniors. | A partner-led programme team, usually large and spanning several grades. | Engineers placed in your team and directed by your own managers. | Advisers who hand the build to your team or a delivery partner. |
| Time to first production slice | Typically weeks. One real workflow, end to end, in your environment. | Set by the programme plan, which usually opens with discovery and mobilisation. | Set by your own plan and backlog, which the placed engineers work to. | Outside the scope. The deliverable is a strategy and roadmap. |
| Model choice | From production evidence across OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and open-source, not from a vendor deal. | Advised by the firm's technology teams, often alongside its published alliances with the major vendors. | Your team's decision, informed by the experience of the engineers placed with it. | A recommendation, for the build team to test on the workload. |
| Governance | Built as platform controls: default-deny access, permission-aware context, deterministic checks, human approval, evaluation gates in CI. | A governance workstream within the programme, covering policy, controls and oversight. | Yours to define, enforce and audit. | A framework, for your team or a delivery partner to implement. |
| What you are left with | Running systems, the architecture written down, and a team that can extend both. | The delivered system and its documentation, with support and changes arranged under the contract. | The work in your own repositories, with handover arranged by your team. | A roadmap, ready to take into the build. |
| Commercial shape | Fixed-scope statements of work, a retained implementation engagement, or embedded engineers from three months. One supplier, one contract. | Multi-phase programme against a rate card. | A rate per person, usually daily or monthly, for as long as the roles are needed. | Fixed fee for the report. |
Why it works
None of them is a methodology. They are the constraints we hold on every engagement, and the reason the work is still running after we leave.
Every engineer is certified on the platforms we build on, or has shipped inside a top-tier engineering organisation.
Defined outputs, a defined price and acceptance criteria in the statement of work, or a clear contract.
Access control, approval gates and evaluation in CI are part of the build, not a later project.
Architecture, code and operating model are documented and handed over. Nothing depends on us staying.
Chosen per workload across OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and open-source, on production evidence rather than vendor loyalty or a vendor deal.
The engineers on your work cover each other's streams, so one person's calendar is never the critical path.
Team
Every engineer here is either certified on the platforms we build on, or has shipped inside a top-tier engineering organisation: Meta, Spotify, UBS, Starling Bank, S&P Global, Sky. We scale the team to the contract.
The senior engineers you will meet first
Founder and Principal Architect
10+ years
AI adoption, agent systems, and Claude and OpenAI platform architecture. Sits with the sponsor, sets the standard, and still writes the code.
Certification
Holds both Anthropic Claude certifications, Architect – Professional and Associate – Foundations, verifiable on Credly.
In production
A large international marketing agency · a government-accredited EdTech
14 years · London
Data platform work, and the context and memory architecture that decides what an AI system is allowed to see, keep and recall.
Shipped inside
Meta · Spotify · Viasat/Inmarsat
17 years · London
Pipeline orchestration, CI/CD and data infrastructure: the layer most AI programmes are actually blocked on once the model choice is settled.
Shipped inside
Starling Bank · UBS · S&P Global · Sky · Société Générale
We name colleagues only with their permission. We name a client only where it has published the work with us. 1AYM delivers the work, and the role, the years and the organisations on each card are the standard being met. You meet the engineers before you sign anything.
About 1AYM
1AYM is an enterprise AI and platform consultancy and an OpenAI Select Partner, founded by Tayyeb Mahmud. We work with clients across the UK, the US and the Gulf. We take organisations from AI ambition to governed production systems their people use every day. Client environments depend on that work today.
Questions
Certified engineers, or engineers who have shipped inside Meta, Spotify, UBS, Starling Bank, S&P Global and Sky, and the same people who scoped the work. There are no juniors on it. Our principal architect leads the architecture and holds the Claude Certified Architect – Professional and Claude Certified Associate – Foundations certifications, both verifiable on Credly. A principal engineer of fourteen years takes the data platform and the context and memory layer; a principal data engineer of seventeen takes pipeline orchestration, CI/CD and data infrastructure. The engineers on an engagement cover each other's streams, and we scale the team to the contract. 1AYM delivers the work rather than any one person, we name colleagues only with their permission, and you meet the engineers before you sign anything.
With a 30-minute call to work out whether 1AYM can help and what it would take. The first paid piece is usually fixed-scope: often a two-to-four week opportunity and feasibility sprint, or a first production slice against one real workflow. We will say plainly when the answer is that you do not need us. Expect weeks rather than quarters to a first working slice, because the delay on these projects is almost never the model. It is access, data quality and the approval path, so we start those on day one.
Three shapes. Most work is a fixed-scope statement of work with defined outputs and a defined price: a sprint, an architecture and build, or an enablement programme. The second is a retained implementation engagement, where one team owns the architecture, builds with your engineers and enables them, typically two to three days a week, under a single statement of work. The third is embedded engineers, a senior engineer or a team inside your own programme on a contract from three months, where the constraint is capacity rather than a scoped deliverable. In every case it is one supplier and one contract. A statement of work carries the outputs, the price and the acceptance criteria; an embedded contract carries the roles, the minimum term and the review cadence. Where a programme needs more engineers we scale the team to the contract, and every one of them is held to the same standard. Public-sector buyers can work with 1AYM through G-Cloud via our partner BAPRO. BAPRO is the delivery partner and 1AYM is the AI partner, across everything 1AYM offers.
A system real people depend on in their working day. That means identity and access control, monitoring, deterministic checks where the output matters, a human approval path for anything high-risk, and a named owner inside your organisation. Something that runs on an engineer's laptop is a prototype. Client environments in production today meet that definition.
Governance is built as controls rather than written as a policy: least-privilege and default-deny access, permission-aware context so an AI system sees only what the user is already entitled to see, audit trails that record refusals as well as answers, deterministic validation, human approval sized to risk, and evaluation gates in CI. We work to UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, plus whatever your sector adds. Where data must stay in a region we architect for it: one production estate runs on Postgres in Google Cloud's Doha region. We hold no ISO or SOC certification.
Whichever one the workload argues for. The choice comes from what we run in production across OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and open-source, not from a vendor deal. We are model-selective across OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and open-source components, chosen per workload rather than by vendor loyalty. In production today: OpenAI audio models for speech assessment with a Gemini fallback, Claude for enterprise platform and agent estates, Codex and Claude Code for engineering work. Where a model is a poor fit for a job we will say so and price the alternative.
Next step
Bring a workflow that is costing you money, or a plan you are not sure about. Half an hour is enough to tell you whether we can help, what it would take, and roughly what it would cost.
Last reviewed · 1AYM
