Proposed 24-month applied research demonstrator
The Inove Group is exploring how its applied AI and automation capability could contribute to a future Scotland-based research and innovation programme, subject to academic, institutional and funding partnerships.
"Can Scottish small and medium-sized enterprises use generative AI, agentic workflows and natural-language software development to increase productive capacity without building specialist technology teams?"
Scotland has a dense concentration of universities with computing and data research strength, an established innovation-support system, and an economy in which small and medium-sized enterprises account for the large majority of private-sector employment. That combination is the condition an applied adoption programme needs.
Our interest is in adoption depth rather than adoption rate. Many organisations have introduced AI tools at the level of individual use. Far fewer have changed how a process actually runs. The gap between those two things is where measurable productivity sits, and in practice it is under-studied.
A proposed 24-month applied research and demonstrator programme examining how Scottish SMEs can move from individual, tool-level AI use towards deeper operational adoption, and what that does to productivity, capability and work itself. The programme is at proposal stage. It has not been funded, approved or formally constituted.
24 months, proposed.
Approximately 40–60 Scottish SMEs in staged cohorts. Indicative scale, subject to funding and partners.
AI Capacity Audit, identification of high-value operating processes, selected AI-enabled interventions, staff and owner training, and longitudinal measurement.
Industry, technical implementation or knowledge-transfer partner — the exact structure would follow from academic and funding partnerships, not precede them.
Generative AI and AI agents applied to defined business processes, with the boundaries and oversight a small firm can operate.
Agentic workflows and automation across the tooling SMEs already own, rather than a replacement stack.
Making a firm's own information findable and usable across its existing tools.
AI-assisted, natural-language software development as a route to internal tools for firms with no development team.
Checkpoints and escalation paths sized to what a small organisation can actually operate.
Governance and data-handling practice built in from the start of each cohort, not added afterwards.
Each cohort would be measured against a pre-agreed baseline, across:
Interested in academic hosting, research design, evaluation or collaboration?
Discuss research collaborationInterested in future SME cohorts, sector use cases or business-network participation?
Register SME / network interestInterested in technical contribution, API/cloud credits, research collaboration or future sponsorship?
Discuss partnershipNo Scottish entity has been established, and no decision to establish one has been taken.
No partnership agreements are in place with any organisation.
Discussions with a hosting institution are being sought, and would need to precede any programme design being fixed.
Early conversations are underway with prospective SME, innovation and technology stakeholders. None constitutes a commitment on either side.
No public or private funding has been secured or applied for on this basis.
Nothing on this page should be read as endorsement, support or approval by any Scottish public body, university or agency.
Any formal programme would be subject to academic, institutional, ethics, funding and governance approval. This page will be updated only when there is documentation behind a change.
A fuller programme outline is available on request.