We compare us against
hiring, software and outsourcing.
You can hire a person, buy software, outsource the work, or scope an AI employee. All four work somewhere, and all four fall down somewhere, ours included. Below is the table we draw on the call.
The first call is free
We draw this table on the call.
| AI employee | Hire | Software | Outsource | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What the work costs | priced per role; one written-up case ran 74% below a part-time hire | salary, plus employer National Insurance, pension and a recruitment fee | licences, plus the salary of whoever runs the software | a contracted price per seat or per task |
| How long until the work gets done | 15 working days, from signature to live | 2-4 months, including the hiring | the licence is instant; your team takes months to use the software | 4-12 weeks of handover |
| Who owns the outcome | Struan, and a named person signs the weekly report | the person you hired, until that person leaves | you do | the provider, at arm's length |
| Where the knowledge ends up | in a job description you own | in one person's head | in your team, if your team keeps using the software | in the provider's building |
| Holidays, sick days and people leaving | none; we commit to cover in the engagement | yes, all three | no, unless the person who runs the software is off | the provider covers absence in the contract |
| Where the approach falls down | judgement calls, physical work and very high volume; we say so upfront | cost, and the risk of losing one key person | the salary the software still needs, which nobody counts | you lose control, and the knowledge leaves your business |
Hire a person when the work needs judgement. Buy licences for the people who draft and think all day. Outsource the work when the volume is genuinely huge. Scope an AI employee for the defined, repeating, document-heavy roles in between.
Most back offices are full of exactly these in-between roles.
We compare an AI employee against Copilot and Power Automate.
People ask us why they should pay for a service when the licences look cheap. A licence is a tool, and a tool still needs the salary of whoever runs the tool. An AI employee does the work, and a named person at Struan answers for the work.
| A Struan AI employee | Copilot + Power Automate | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | finished work, against a job description you approved | a licence for each person, and a place to build your own workflows |
| Who does the work | the AI employee; a named person at Struan reads and signs the weekly report | your own people, faster, on the days your people use the licence |
| The cost that matters | the service; nobody on your payroll runs the role | the licence, plus the salary of whoever runs the licence, plus the upkeep of every workflow |
| Getting your team to use the tool | none; your team has no new tool to take up | yours to sort; an unused licence costs the same as a licence in daily use |
| When something breaks | we catch the work and fix the work, at our cost | a workflow fails quietly until someone notices, then waits in the support queue |
| Where the approach wins | the defined, repeating role nobody on your team holds | the people who draft, summarise and analyse all day |
Buy Copilot for the people who draft, summarise and think all day. We say so on the call, and both approaches sit happily side by side. A licence stops being enough at the defined, repeating, document-heavy role nobody on your team holds.
A licence waits to be used,
and an AI employee does the work.
An AI employee is a defined role.
Every firm in this market uses the same words differently. Here is what you buy from Struan, and here is what you do not.
An AI employee is
- A managed role with a job descriptionThe role commits to named outputs and a weekly rhythm, and a named person at Struan answers for the work.
- Held at a gate where the stakes are highYou set the thresholds. Anything past a threshold stops and waits for a person, and the audit trail records the stop.
- Reported with a signatureEvery weekly report is read and signed by a named person at Struan before the report reaches you.
An AI employee is not
- A copilotA copilot makes one of your people faster. An AI employee holds a role of its own.
- A chatbotA chatbot talks. An AI employee posts, files, chases and reconciles, then hands you finished work.
- A licenceYour team has no licence to install, learn or maintain, and no unused licence to pay for.
- A consultancy phaseThe role goes live and runs to the same rhythm week after week. We hand nothing back to you at the end.
Every role has one job description and one name on the report.
We cost the hire in full.
Our finance-desk case study quotes a 74% saving against a part-time hire, taken from the signed scope. That claim only holds up if the hire is costed properly, against current UK rates rather than the advertised salary.
A hire costs the advertised salary plus employer National Insurance, pension auto-enrolment and the recruitment fee, before anyone works a day. Then count the days you actually get. Statutory leave, bank holidays and sick days come out of the working year, so a day of real work costs well above the salary. Training, equipment, software licences, management time and replacing people who leave all sit outside the salary.
We show the working on the call, with your numbers.
We give you a number
on the call.
The first call is free