From Chat to
Orchestration
Vu Agency was incorporated 21 months ago today. In that time, AI went from a chatbot to a co-worker.
21 months doesn't sound that long. But in AI, it's another era entirely.
Back then in 2024 (the good ol' days), AI was a chatbot. Still a lot of people think that's all it is.
Things move so quickly that you still hear people talking about solved AI failures. Remember all the images of people with 6 fingers?
Over those few hundred days AI started to think for longer, use tools and carry out multi-step tasks. OpenAI introduced o1-preview in September 2024 and released full o1 in December, Anthropic launched computer use, people started talking about agentic AI and orchestration (I'm doing that right now too!).
People got excited about OpenClaw so much that it put a nice boost in Apple's sales of Mac Minis, which is good, because Apple only has about $150bn in spare cash.
In 2024, Alex and I were both using AI every day and noticing work that used to take a week was getting done in a day. At the same time, most businesses were barely using it at all.
When o1 released at the end of 2024, you could already do mind-blowing things, you just had to have a lot of tricks up your sleeve. Automations to enable the automations, to enable the automations... you get the idea.
But now we have what the geeks/nerds like ourselves like to call "harnesses", which means we don't have to play those games anymore.
Raq.com is built on those harnesses. A branded document that would have taken hours in Photoshop is now a few dictated prompts while you're also reviewing code and replying to emails.
Multi-tasking is back! The useful skill now is running 2-5 things at once while maintaining deep-focus. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it's a thing, for at least as long as agents aren't instant. If we get back to the point where SOTA agents are 10-100x faster than today, we'll flip back again.
Made with Raq.com Animated SVGs
AI passed a Turing test, but the goal posts have kept moving.
Vu Agency won Solihull Breakthrough Business 2025, and this year we were shortlisted for Digital Revolutionary at the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce Awards.
More importantly, we've built tools that genuinely changed how our clients operate, and we've built AI products we use every day ourselves.
We built the tools we wanted to see.
102.ai is our Wix/Squarespace competitor. "Your website, redesigned by AI agents in 102 minutes." We used it on our own site first, put the three directions to a vote, and the version on this page is the one people chose.
We've been getting very positive feedback on it. It's 10x quicker and easier than existing website builders and the code it produces is much cleaner and more modern. You can also treat it like an employee, by sending it emails to update your site, then it sends you an email back with the website to approve it going live.
Project Quote AI grew out of AI getting smart enough to put 99% of the spec together itself with a price and timeline we can trust.
In the background this works by using 5+ models to come to a consensus on the project pricing. Describe a software project in plain English and get a specification, mockup, price and timeline in minutes.
Raq.com is what Alex is really excited about. This is now our hub and how we orchestrate our work.
When combined with Codex and Claude Code, it's incredibly exciting. It's how we orchestrate everything now.
With AI, client work is actually fun, rewarding and it pays the bills.
Corporate Dinner
120 guests · Sat
Wedding Reception
80 guests · Jun
Product Launch
200 guests · Apr
Charity Gala
£4,200
Team Away Day
£1,800
Summer Party
£3,500
For a Birmingham events venue, we built a booking and operations platform with a live pipeline, revenue forecasts and an AI assistant that handles enquiries overnight.
Before, their team was manually replying to every email and losing leads after hours. Now the AI handles the first conversation, and a human only steps in when the booking is ready to confirm.
Sarah Mitchell
Senior Developer · 8yr exp
James Parker
Full Stack · 5yr exp
Priya Sharma
Backend · 6yr exp
+ 9 below threshold
For a recruitment company, we built an assessment platform that grades questionnaires, syncs results into the CRM and cuts the admin between application and shortlist.
Their consultants went from spending half a day on paperwork to reviewing a finished shortlist.
Gap Detected
Then £0
+60% ↑
We're excited about our Venture Studio offering, where we build your software product for free. Your idea, our engineering, shared ownership.
We're about to launch RiskMapped, a risk assessment tool for financial advisers. If you have an idea for vertical SaaS in your industry, let's talk.
Jevons paradox
When a tool gets dramatically more efficient, demand usually rises rather than falls.
The venue that automated bookings did not cut reception staff. They started hosting more events. The recruitment firm that automated grading did not lay off consultants. They placed more candidates.
Clients are not using AI to do the same amount of work with less effort. They are using it to take on work they would previously have delayed, outsourced or dropped altogether.
We work 2x as much and are 10-100x more productive.
The future will be more blunt, with humans apologising for the bluntness of their AI agents.
Tom, the churn risk report was due last Tuesday. It hasn't been received. Sarah needs it today.
Sorry Tom, that came across way harsher than I'd put it. Anytime this week works!
Ha, don't worry. Mine's the same. I'll get it to you ASAP.
Even with all the noise, most businesses are still early.
of US adults had used ChatGPT by June 2025 (Pew)
of US workers said AI handled at least some of their work (Pew, Oct 2025)
said they did not use it much or at all on the job
Source: Pew Research Center, 2025
The headlines make AI feel universal. The reality is, as has always been, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed".
I worry that as wealth inequality widens, so will productivity inequality, with the people who know how to make agents do their bidding leaving the people afraid of change behind, creating a gap and tension.
Our job is to make sure our clients are on the right side of that gap.
But everything takes longer than people think.
Remember when the internet was going to kill all shops overnight? It did, eventually, over 25 years. Not in a quarter.
AI will reshape work, but the timeline is longer than the panic suggests.
And we are not going to run out of problems. Give a lawyer AI to handle paperwork and they don't go home early. They take on more cases. More cases means more defendants who need lawyers. The work expands. Wait, that's a bad example.
The doom scenarios can model what gets destroyed. They can never model what gets created. Nobody predicted that the internet would create "influencer" as a job title.
Lawsuits. Influencers. I'm making this sound worse than the doom scenario.
I should have led with... medicine is starting to be designed for your specific genetics rather than a best-guess average, and diseases too rare to justify research budgets are finally getting attention because the cost of running experiments is collapsing.
A teacher can give every student personalised feedback instead of one-size-fits-all marking. A small manufacturer can take on custom orders they'd have turned away because the quoting and design work was too expensive for low volumes.
And for accessibility, AI is transforming life for disabled people in ways that don't make the headlines often enough. Chris McCausland, who is blind, was genuinely emotional on a recent BBC documentary about what AI had meant for his independence.
If you want to see what AI could mean for your specific business, our free AI business analysis tool is the fastest way to find out. Just enter your domain name. There's a fun easter egg in there too that people are enjoying.
Alex has a blog post coming in the next few weeks about all the practical ways you can use AI agents day to day.
Agents make work fun again, maybe too fun.
Productivity retreats may become a real thing over the next few years, with people having to go on retreats to unwind from being "locked in" 24/7. We're considering it. Or maybe that's just what a holiday is?