AI Integration in Ripley

It does not all have to move. We can give an assistant access to specific folders or a limited set of files, and leave drawings and job archives where they are. For a lot of Ripley engineering firms that is the sensible answer. We will explain which parts genuinely benefit from cloud services and which are perfectly fine as they stand.

It depends on which of the three routes fits. Turning on Copilot properly and training your team is a short piece of work on top of licences you are already paying Microsoft for. A custom assistant trained on your documents is a build plus a running cost for the AI service. We scope it, quote it in writing and you decide before anything starts.

Copilot configuration and training can usually be done inside a week or two, and people notice the difference in their next batch of emails and meeting notes. A custom assistant trained on your own documents takes longer, because we have to get your files in order first. Either way we start with the quickest useful win rather than the biggest project.

No. The setup is a defined piece of work, quoted up front, and you are not locked into anything afterwards. If you want us to keep tuning things as models change, that runs monthly and you can stop it whenever. The licences stay in your own Microsoft or OpenAI account, in your name, so nothing is held hostage if you move on.

The technical setup is nearly all remote, which keeps it quick and cheap. The training is the bit worth doing in person, so we come to your Ripley office, sit with people and work through real jobs on their own screens. Adoption is much better when someone has actually shown them, rather than emailing a guide.

Your Microsoft 365 setup and where your information actually lives. Half the reason Copilot disappoints is that permissions are loose and files are scattered, so it either cannot find anything or finds things people should not see. We check that first, tidy what needs tidying, and only then turn features on.

Not on the services we set up. Business-grade platforms such as Microsoft 365 Copilot and Azure OpenAI keep your content out of public model training, which is the main difference between them and the free chatbot someone has open in another tab. We configure the governance to match, and we will explain in plain English exactly where your data goes.

Only if it saves someone real time, and we will tell you if it will not. For a Ripley business of five or ten people, the honest wins are usually narrow: faster email and document drafting, quicker answers out of your own paperwork, and an assistant covering common website questions out of hours. That is worth having. A grand AI strategy is not.

Yes, and it usually starts with working out what is actually switched on, who owns the accounts and what data those tools can reach. That last one gets missed more often than you would think. We tidy up the permissions, keep whatever is genuinely being used, retire the rest and put the licences in your name.

Both. Plenty of day-to-day faults get sorted remotely the moment you ring, without anyone leaving their desk. But Ripley is about twenty-five minutes from us on the A610, so when something needs hands on it we come out. Dead switches, cabling, a server that will not boot, a new machine on the shop floor: that is a visit, and for urgent jobs we aim to be there the same day.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no, and we will tell you which. If your drawings, machine files or job-costing software need to sit on the local network, a properly specified on-site server with a backup that actually gets tested is still the right answer for a lot of Ripley workshops. We look at what your kit really does, then show you which route costs less over five years.