Purpose of experiment
To identify and configure an AI toolkit for Anapoly AI Labs that credibly models the use of general-purpose AI tools in a small consultancy setting.
Author and date
Alec Fearon, 24 June 2025
Participants
Alec Fearon, with Ray Holland and Dennis Silverwood in email consultation
ChatGPT-4o
Lab configuration and setup
This setup models a real-world micro-consultancy with three collaborators. It assumes limited budget, modest technical support, and a practical orientation. We aim to reflect the toolkit choices we might recommend to participants in Anapoly AI Labs sessions.
Preamble
If Anapoly AI Labs is to be a credible venture, we believe it must model the behaviour it explores. That means our own internal work should demonstrate how small teams or sole traders might use AI tools in everyday tasks – writing, research, analysis, and communication – not just talk about it. This lab note outlines our proposed working configuration.
Procedure
We identified common functions we ourselves perform (and expect others will want to model), for example:
- Writing, summarising, and critiquing text
- Researching topics and checking facts
- Extracting and organising information from documents
- Sharing and collaborating on files
- Managing project knowledge
We then selected tools that:
- Are available off the shelf
- Require no specialist training
- Are affordable on a small-business budget
- Can be configured and used transparently
Findings
Core Tools Selected
| Function | Tool | Licence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing & prompting | ChatGPT Team | £25–30/m/user | Main workspace for drafting, reasoning, editing |
| Search & fact-checking | Perplexity Pro | $20/m/user | Fast, source-aware, good for validating facts |
| Document interrogation | NotebookLM | Free (for now) | Project libraries, good with PDFs and notes |
| Office apps | MS 365 or Google | £5–15/m/user | Matches common small business setups |
| Visual inputs | ChatGPT Vision | Included with ChatGPT | Used for images, scans, and screenshots |
Discussion of findings
This configuration balances affordability, realism, and capability. We expect participants in Anapoly AI Labs to have similar access to these tools, or to be able to get it. By using these tools ourselves in Anapoly’s day-to-day running, we:
- Gain first hand experience to share
- Create reusable examples from real work
- Expose gaps, workarounds, and lessons worth documenting
We considered whether personal licences could be shared during lab sessions. Technically, they can’t: individual ChatGPT and Perplexity licences are for single-user use. While enforcement is unlikely, we’ve chosen to adopt the position that participants should bring their own their own AI tools – free or paid – to lab sessions as part of the learning experience. This avoids ambiguity about licencing and sets the ethical standard we want to maintain.
Conclusions
This toolkit would enable us to model our own small-business operations, treating Anapoly itself as one of the lab setups. That would reinforce our stance: we don’t claim to be AI experts; we’re practitioners asking the questions small businesses wish they had time to ask, and showing what happens when you do.
Recommendations
- Configure project workspaces in ChatGPT Team to reflect different lab contexts
- Maintain prompt libraries and reasoning trails
- Make costs, configurations, and limitations explicit in diary and lab notes
- Evaluate whether to add AI-enhanced spreadsheet or knowledge tools (e.g. Notion, Obsidian) in future iterations
Tags
ai tools, toolkit, configuration, modelling, small business, chatgpt, perplexity, notebooklm, office software, credibility
Glossary
ChatGPT Team – OpenAI’s paid workspace version of ChatGPT, allowing collaboration, custom GPTs, and project folders.
NotebookLM – A Google tool for working with uploaded documents using AI, currently free.
Perplexity Pro – A subscription AI assistant known for showing sources.
Vision input – The ability to upload images (photos, scans) and have the AI interpret them.