In our latest AI in Action webinar, Phil de Gruchy and Anish Bagga from Blue Llama explored a question many business leaders are asking right now: How do you actually turn AI into profit?
Rather than focusing on tools, trends, or technical jargon, this session looked at AI from a business perspective. Using an illustrative case study of a 50-person Jersey trust company called Granite Trust, the webinar showed how organisations can identify high-impact opportunities, calculate potential return on investment, and prioritise the AI and automation projects that are most likely to improve efficiency, free up capacity, and strengthen margins.
Webinar summary
In this session, we moved away from the usual conversation around AI tools and instead focused on a more practical business question: where is time being lost, what is that costing the business, and which opportunities are most worth pursuing first?
Phil opened by explaining the challenge many leadership teams are facing. There is clear pressure to start adopting AI, but no obvious route forward. With so many tools, models, and platforms appearing all the time, many businesses are struggling to work out where to begin and how to avoid wasting time or money on the wrong solutions.
The core message of the webinar was simple. Do not start with the technology. Start with the process.
Instead of asking which AI tool to buy, businesses should begin by identifying the repetitive, time-intensive workflows that create bottlenecks, drain team capacity, or introduce inconsistency. Once these are visible, the next step is to quantify their impact and assess where AI and automation could deliver measurable value.
To bring this to life, Anish walked through Granite Trust, a illustrative but realistic trust company operating across Jersey and Guernsey. Using this case study, he demonstrated how Blue Llama approaches AI opportunity assessment by scoring processes against four key criteria:
- Time drain
- Direct cost
- Error and risk
- Scalability
From there, the team identified three high-potential areas for improvement:
- Policy and procedure drafting
- Board minute preparation
- Policy and compliance knowledge queries
The webinar then explored how AI solutions built within the Microsoft ecosystem could support each of these processes.
For policy drafting, the example showed how an AI assistant could review an existing policy, compare it to updated guidance, produce a revised draft, track changes, and prepare it for approval. This was estimated to save around six hours per policy and deliver annual savings of roughly £12,500.
For board minute preparation, the session showed how AI could pull the correct template, pre-fill entity details, use meeting notes or transcripts to draft the narrative, and store the completed minutes in SharePoint. This was estimated to save around 40 minutes per set of minutes and generate annual savings of around £27,000.
For compliance and policy queries, Anish demonstrated the value of an internal knowledge bot that could answer staff questions instantly using approved source documents, complete with citations and links to the relevant clause or page. This was projected to save around 22 hours per week and deliver annual savings of approximately £45,000.
Taken together, the three example solutions created a compelling picture. The total projected annual saving for Granite Trust came to around £87,847, with a payback period of 21 weeks. With support from the Jersey Productivity Grant, that payback period could potentially reduce to around 10 weeks.
The webinar also explained why Blue Llama takes a Power Platform first approach. By building within the Microsoft environment using tools such as Teams, SharePoint, Copilot Studio, Power Automate and Power BI, organisations can keep their data inside their own tenant, reduce unnecessary complexity, and create solutions that fit around the way their teams already work.
The session closed with a live Q and A covering key topics including regulation, working with trust companies, validating AI solutions before full rollout, integrating with non-Microsoft systems, staff buy-in, and the difference between Microsoft Copilot and more customised internal bots built in Copilot Studio.
The webinar covered:
- Why many business leaders feel pressure to act on AI, but still do not know where to start
- Why process-first thinking is more valuable than tool-first thinking
- How to score business processes based on time, cost, risk and scalability
- A practical trust company case study showing how three AI opportunities were identified
- Example ROI calculations across policy drafting, board minutes, and compliance knowledge queries
- Why building within the Microsoft ecosystem can be a strong fit for many organisations
- How workshops and proof-of-concept work can reduce risk before committing to a larger project
- Common questions around regulation, staff adoption, integration, and commercial impact
Key takeaways
AI projects are far more effective when they begin with business pain points rather than software selection.
The strongest opportunities are often hiding in repetitive internal processes that people no longer question because they are so embedded in day-to-day work.
ROI should be modelled before development begins. When businesses understand the likely time saving, cost impact, and payback period, it becomes much easier to prioritise the right projects.
Small improvements across multiple workflows can add up to a meaningful financial return. In the Granite Trust example, three targeted solutions combined to create a strong year-one benefit.
AI does not have to sit outside your business systems. For many organisations, especially those already using Microsoft 365, there is significant value in building solutions within the tools and environment they already trust.
Validation matters. Discovery sessions, proof-of-concept work, and close collaboration with process owners all help reduce risk and improve adoption.
There is a real opportunity right now for Jersey businesses to use the Productivity Grant to reduce the cost of getting started with AI and automation.
We are now helping businesses work through this same process in a structured AI opportunities workshop. If you would like to identify where AI could create measurable value in your business, improve efficiency, and support stronger margins, get in touch with Blue Llama to learn more.
