Founder
Meet Jake Whitford
I started Magnetic AI because I kept seeing the same thing: business owners who knew AI was important but had no idea where to start, and a market full of consultants making it sound more complicated than it needs to be.
My career has taken me from global names like Wrigley's and Rolls-Royce to running the family marketing communications business alongside three brothers, where we scaled turnover from £3m to £6m by doing something unglamorous but effective, streamlining and automating processes, building SQL databases and custom web applications, and removing the friction that was slowing good people down. The growth came from making the business smarter, not from hiring our way out of problems.
That's the same logic I bring to every client I work with now.
"What I'm really trying to do is simple: help businesses find where AI can save time, reduce repeated admin and support better decision-making without losing the human judgement that makes a business trusted."
I work with SME owners and their senior teams, typically businesses with 8 to 100 people, across professional services, manufacturing, retail and technology. The work usually starts with a discovery call or meeting to identify where AI can genuinely add value, then moves into AI sprint workshops, governance, implementation, training and ongoing support. I also hold Tech NED and Fractional CTO positions, which means I'm comfortable at board level and I understand the commercial pressures behind every decision.
There's nothing quite like the moment an owner realises they finally have time to work on their business rather than being permanently stuck inside it.
If you're trying to figure out where AI fits, or you're already using it but not seeing the results you'd expect, feel free to connect or drop me a message.
Connect on LinkedIn
Why Magnetic?
A strong magnet needs both poles
The name Magnetic comes from something I noticed when I was Operations Director at a manufacturing business. I ran workshops over the years to tackle real operational challenges, and almost every session had the same two camps: the enthusiastic ones who wanted to push forward, and the cautious ones raising concerns. Early on, I saw the sceptics as a problem. Then I started pairing them deliberately with the champions and something changed. The concerns stopped being obstacles and started being the questions that made the solutions actually work. The more resistant someone was at the start, the more useful their input turned out to be once they felt heard.
A strong magnet needs both poles. AI initiatives that ignore the sceptics in a business tend to fail, not because the technology was wrong, but because the people weren't brought along. My job is to make sure that doesn't happen.
Start with the people that do the work, then choose the technology
Good AI adoption does not start with a platform demo. It starts by sitting with the people doing the work and finding the tasks that slow them down every week.
Find the time leaks
Map the admin, reporting, writing, chasing and re-keying that eats up the week.
Pick the right use cases
Focus on jobs that are repetitive, valuable and realistic to improve.
Build and test
Create custom GPTs, workflow apps, document assistants or simple automations around real tasks.
Train and support
Help the team use AI safely, consistently and with confidence.
The aim is not to add more tools.
The aim is to make useful work easier.
AI works best when people are part of the process
Practical over theoretical
Every recommendation should connect to a real business task.
People before platforms
The team doing the work should help shape how AI is used.
Clear rules beat guesswork
Safe AI use needs simple guidance, data boundaries and review points.
Start small, prove value, then build
The best first step is often one repeated task fixed properly.
