The framework page shows the five stages applied to knowledge-heavy professional services work, including internal knowledge retrieval across a fragmented SharePoint structure.
See the framework in practiceLocations / Cambridge
AI agents for technical, knowledge-heavy teams.
AI agents and Copilot consultancy in Cambridge
We design and build AI agents inside Microsoft 365 for Cambridge organisations, then train your own team to use Copilot and build the next ones. The work goes to the depth technical teams expect: grounding, permissions and the data underneath, not a surface-level demo.
FiveForward is a UK AI agent consultancy based in Colchester, working with professional services firms and knowledge-heavy teams in Cambridge. We design and build AI agents and automations inside a firm's own Microsoft 365, using Copilot Studio and Power Automate. Our agents start on their own when something happens, do the checking, drafting and filing, then stop for a person at the firm to approve. We also train a firm's team, hands-on, to use Copilot and build their own agents.
This page is for consultancies, professional services firms and knowledge-work organisations with technical staff who will not sign off an agent they cannot interrogate. Before an agent goes near real work, they want to know what it is grounded on, what it can see, how it behaves at the edges of its knowledge and where it hands over to a person. The build has to be credible at that level.
Agents lead, but they depend on the layers underneath. The same engagement usually takes in SharePoint information architecture for trustworthy grounding, permissions that limit what each agent can see and Copilot Studio and Power Automate work for the intake, retrieval and filing jobs worth automating. Alongside the builds, we train your own team to use Copilot on its real work and, through Copilot Studio workshops, to build agents in your own Microsoft 365.
Run an accountancy firm? See the six accountancy agents: what starts each one and where your team approves.
Want your team trained? Start with Copilot training on your own work, or see every training session, from Cowork to building agents.
With technical teams, agent projects rarely stall for lack of skill. Someone gets a Copilot Studio agent running in an afternoon and the demo impresses, then the agent quietly falls out of use. The usual cause is that the build started before the job was named: no agreed workflow, untidy source content, no owner and no review point where a person checks the output.
The FiveForward Framework gives Cambridge teams a route that respects that. Discover finds the workflows genuinely worth an agent, Design fixes the scope and price before anything is built, Enable gets your team hands on, Automate builds the agents and Embed keeps them owned and improving. The job, the source data and the owner are named before the first agent exists.
How an engagement runs in Cambridge
Five stages, framed for Cambridge teams.
The route in is the free 30-minute call. From there it's a fixed-price build, training for your team or Discover. The stages that follow are sized to what you chose.
01
Discover
£1,500 fixed, covering Discover and Design. We sit with your Cambridge teams and map the knowledge-heavy workflows where an agent could take real weight: intake, retrieval, chasing and filing.
02
Design
Covered by the same fee. Discover and Design together produce the workflow map, prioritised agent use cases and costed plan. Design ends with a playback of about an hour where you choose the route and the price is fixed.
03
Enable
Copilot Studio workshops for the people who will build, on your own data, in Cambridge or online. First session from £1,150, hands-on and built around your own processes. A half day ends with one working agent built by the group; a full day gives each person their own agent and a first skill. For the rest of the team, Copilot in your workflows trains people on what the Copilot licence already includes.
04
Automate
We build the agents and automations from the plan, typically £2,500 to £15,000 depending on the number of agents, the systems they connect to and the state of the source data. Build with us, at £3,950 fixed, is the alternative: a few of your team build the agents on the plan with us alongside.
05
Embed
Care at £295 a month for one live agent, or Embed from £750 a month for up to three, keeps live agents reviewed, measured and improved, with an experienced builder within reach of your team.
Who this suits
- Consultancies, professional services firms and knowledge-work organisations
- Technical staff who want to see how an agent is grounded, permissioned and reviewed before they trust it
- Teams that want to build agents in house once the first builds are live
- Remote and multi-site teams that suit workshops, build reviews and playback sessions through Microsoft Teams
Common work
- Internal knowledge agents grounded in SharePoint for the repeat questions technical teams are tired of answering
- Intake and triage agents that read new enquiries and requests and route them with the right context
- Records-chasing flows that request missing information, follow up and file what comes back
- Document filing automation that names and stores reports, letters and deliverables to a consistent structure
- Approval and reporting flows in Power Automate with agreed review points where judgement stays with people
- SharePoint information architecture so agents ground on trusted, current sources
The work often needs depth: grounding, permissions, SharePoint structure and how an agent behaves at the edges of its knowledge. Cambridge teams ask harder questions, and the answers have to hold up.
Cambridge is further from our Colchester base than the Essex towns, so we plan on-site days deliberately: Discover interviews, the Design playback or a training session where being in the room is worth the trip.
Much of the rest runs well online, where build reviews, playback sessions and workshops happen in your own Microsoft 365 against your own data. Blended delivery, a few on-site days around a mostly online programme, is the usual shape here.
Delivery can be remote, on site or blended. The important part is making each agent credible enough for technical users and owned by your own team once we step back.
Proof and examples
Case studies, not local name-drops.
The examples below show how we build these engagements.
A case study shows an AI post room agent that reads scanned letters, matches them against more than 1,500 live clients and files them in about two minutes, with people handling only the exceptions.
Read the AI post room case studyAnother case study shows a generic CRM replaced with a SharePoint, Power Apps and Outlook build, the kind of clean data backbone that makes agent grounding reliable.
Read the SharePoint backbone case studyCommon questions
Questions before you choose the next step.
Do you work on site in Cambridge?
Yes, for the days where being in the room helps most: Discover interviews, the Design playback or a training session. Build reviews and most working sessions run well online in your own Microsoft 365.
What does an agent build cost?
Discover is £1,500 fixed and covers Discover and Design together, with up to six hours of sessions across one team or service line. Builds are typically £2,500 to £15,000 depending on the number of agents, the systems they connect to and the state of the source data, with the price fixed before anything is built. Build with us, where your team builds the agents on your plan with us alongside, is £3,950 fixed.
Is our data safe with an agent?
We build agents in your own Microsoft 365, not on our servers, and we don't host your data. An agent your team talks to only sees what the person using it can already see. Agents that run on their own use a dedicated service account, limited to the mailboxes, folders and systems the job needs, agreed with you in advance. We build in UK regions wherever Microsoft offers them, and anything that has to run elsewhere is set out for your compliance lead to approve before go-live. Microsoft doesn't use your Microsoft 365 content to train its foundation models, and every run is logged. For technical teams we walk through the grounding sources and review points before anything goes live.
Can our team learn to build agents themselves?
Yes, and Cambridge teams often want exactly that. Training is built around your firm's own processes and never needs Discover first. It runs in stages, and your firm can stop at any of them: Copilot in your workflows, on what the Copilot licence already includes, then Cowork, a short agents course for anyone in the firm and Copilot Studio workshops for the few who'll build. First sessions from £950, each per group (recommended up to 12 people), hands-on and follow-along, online through Teams or on site. Build with us, at £3,950 fixed, goes further: your team builds the agents with us alongside, over two guided build days, two build reviews and 90 days of email support.
How technical can the work get?
As technical as your team needs. Grounding behaviour, permissions, SharePoint structure, connector choices and where an agent should refuse to answer are all part of the conversation, because technical users will not trust an agent they cannot interrogate.
How do we start?
With a free 30-minute call, no pitch, no obligation. From there it's a fixed-price build, training for your team or Discover if you're not sure yet where agents would help. If you already know what you want, such as one of the six accountancy agents, we scope it on the free call and the specification is included in the fixed build price. Discover is £1,500 fixed, covering Design and credited back in full once your follow-on work passes £3,500 (ex VAT) within 90 days.
Where to go next
Copilot Studio agents
How we design and build agents inside your own Microsoft 365.
Training
Copilot in your workflows and Cowork for the whole team, a short agents course for anyone in your firm and hands-on Copilot Studio workshops for the people who'll build, all built around your own processes.
The FiveForward Framework
The five-stage method behind every agent programme we run.
What Copilot agents are
A plain-English guide to Copilot agents and the jobs they suit.
Next step
Talk through the first job you'd hand to an agent, or the training your team needs.
A free 30-minute call is enough to work out the right next step: a fixed-price build, training for your team or Discover, a fixed £1,500 covering Discover and Design, if you're not sure yet where agents would help.