Our verdict
Brainpool AI suits a mid-sized company, or a team inside a larger one, that wants one AI tool scoped, tested as a proof of concept and then built at published rates, with specialists drawn from its expert network. Its core staff is small and several of its case studies report no results, so it fits a contained project better than a long program that needs a large standing team.
The right buyer
- Manufacturers and construction firms that want repetitive design or quoting work automated. Its DAISY tool for Staircraft Group produces a timber floor layout in under 10 minutes, where a designer used to manage two or three a day (DAISY case study).
- Companies that want to test an idea before paying for a full build. Fujitsu Technology Solutions moved from a scoping assessment to a proof of concept and then a sentiment analysis MVP with it in 2023 (Clutch review).
- Teams that want their staff taught the basics of AI adoption: a Swedish software company hired it for educational sessions and reported strong feedback from participants (Clutch review).
- Buyers who want a price range early: Clutch lists $150 to $199 an hour and a $25,000 minimum project.
Reasons to look elsewhere
- Its core team is small. Its About page lists five staff, Clutch puts headcount at 10 to 49, and most specialists come from its outside network.
- Several case studies describe the problem but give no results, including its HSBC Project Pulse and construction quoting pages, and its electric vehicle detection work stopped at a proof of concept.
- It turns down some sectors. Co-founder Kasia Borowska says it will not work on autonomous weapons, the fossil fuel industry or the Metaverse (Authority Magazine).
- Outside evidence is limited to four Clutch reviews, and the most common project size among them is under $10,000.
Brainpool AI, At A High Level
Brainpool AI is an AI consulting and development firm in London, England, that designs and builds custom machine learning and generative AI tools for businesses.
- Incorporated in February 2016 (Companies House) by Kasia Borowska and Peter Bebbington, who met at University College London (About). Borowska says it began as a marketplace for data scientists looking for industry work before it became a consultancy (Authority Magazine).
- Draws on a network of more than 500 AI and machine learning specialists in 23 countries. Its About page lists five core staff and an advisory group that includes Philip Treleaven, director of the UK Financial Computing Centre at UCL (About).
- Projects usually start with a scoping programme, then a proof of concept and an MVP. It also offers Cortex, its own platform that brings a client’s AI models, business knowledge, data and workflows together in one environment (Clutch).
- Clutch lists $150 to $199 an hour, a $25,000 minimum project and a 50/50 split between AI consulting and AI development work, and puts 60% of its clients above $1 billion in revenue (Clutch).
Its documented client work includes:
- DAISY for Staircraft Group, which Brainpool describes as the UK’s largest timber floor and stair manufacturer: a web application that uses a genetic algorithm to produce compliant floor layouts in under 10 minutes. Brainpool says DAISY was designing 12% of floors in the UK residential timber housing market within two years, and it launched in Canada in 2023 (case study).
- An AI design pipeline for Crown & Paw, an online seller of custom pet portraits, which Brainpool says saves 20 minutes per design, processes orders three times faster and cuts contractor costs by $365,000 a year (case study).
- A sentiment analysis tool for Fujitsu, built from May to September 2023 as a proof of concept and then an MVP, in a $50,000 to $199,999 project (Clutch review; market research case studies).
- Currency forecasting models for a large Japanese bank that reached 56% forecast accuracy against a 52% baseline (case study), and a modular market abuse detection kit for SteelEye, a trade surveillance software company (testimonial).
- A review of the computer vision classifiers used by Vetology, a veterinary radiology company in San Diego, California, with metrics and tuning practices for its team (Clutch review).
Scores
| Criterion | Weight | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production track record | 20% | 6.5 | DAISY in use at Staircraft and, by Brainpool’s account, designing 12% of UK residential timber floors; Crown & Paw design pipeline; Fujitsu MVP; several other projects stopped at proof of concept. |
| Technical depth | 15% | 6.5 | Genetic algorithm optimization, computer vision, sentiment analysis, forecasting and language model search; founders trained in physics and cognitive science at UCL. |
| Industry depth | 10% | 5.5 | Repeat construction work (Staircraft, construction quoting, a carbon calculator for the Quebec Wood Export Bureau) plus finance, retail and market research; no dominant industry. |
| Delivery model and handoff | 15% | 6.0 | Scoping programme, proof of concept and MVP stages; teams assembled from its expert network; its own Cortex platform for deployment. |
| Commercial clarity | 10% | 7.0 | Clutch lists $150 to $199 an hour and a $25,000 minimum; reviewed projects ranged from under $10,000 to $199,999. |
| Platform independence | 10% | 7.0 | Describes its approach as model-agnostic; Clutch shows work across OpenAI, Anthropic and Cohere models; AWS partner; some deployments run on its own Cortex platform. |
| Stability and scale | 10% | 4.0 | Operating since 2016 with 10 to 49 employees and five core staff on its site; its co-founder says it lost many clients during the pandemic. |
| Independent evidence | 10% | 5.5 | Four Clutch reviews averaging 4.9, including reviewers at Fujitsu and Vetology; client testimonials on its own site; founder interviews in trade media. |
| Overall | 100% | 6.1 | Weighted average |
Where Brainpool AI fits
| Need | Fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Design or layout automation for manufacturers and construction firms | Strong | DAISY timber floor design tool for Staircraft Group. |
| A proof of concept and MVP for one defined AI feature | Good | Fujitsu sentiment analysis tool, from scoping to MVP in five months. |
| AI training sessions for staff | Good | Educational sessions for a Swedish software company, reviewed on Clutch. |
| A large, multi-year program with a big dedicated team | Weak | 10 to 49 employees and five core staff; most specialists come from its network. |
What clients and leaders say
“We think DAISY will increase our productivity by about 100%”
“There were bottlenecks on our side which meant Brainpool didn't always have the deliverables they needed from us on time, and still they managed to always deliver on time.”
“The pandemic caused us to lose a lot of clients at Brainpool which forced us to start again and grow from the ground up.”
Who leads Brainpool AI
Peter BebbingtonCo-founder and CEO, Brainpool AI
Kasia BorowskaCo-founder and Chief Product Officer, Brainpool AISources (12)
- Brainpool AI: homepage
- Brainpool AI: About, team and advisers
- Brainpool AI: Case studies and client testimonials
- Brainpool AI: DAISY timber design case study
- Brainpool AI: Crown & Paw design pipeline case study
- Brainpool AI: Currency forecasting case study
- Brainpool AI: Market research case studies (Fujitsu)
- Brainpool AI: Automotive case studies
- Clutch: Brainpool AI profile and reviews
- Companies House: Brainpool Ltd company record
- Authority Magazine: Interview with Kasia Borowska (March 2025)
- EM360: Ask the Expert with Peter Bebbington (2020)