Former ScotlandIS chair launches independent AI advisory Bield

Graeme Gordon, former Chair of ScotlandIS, has launched Bield, an Aberdeen-based independent AI adoption advisory working with businesses across the UK.

Bield launches as AI becomes part of everyday business life. ScotlandIS’s own 2026 industry survey found that almost every Scottish technology business now uses AI in some form, but fewer than one in five has fully adopted it. Across the wider economy, the Fraser of Allander Institute found in June that almost two-thirds of Scottish firms had used AI, but most only in a light-touch way.

Gordon said: “AI is arriving faster than the rules, policies and practices to govern it. Most businesses know they need to act, but not where to start, what is safe, or which tools are worth paying for.”

Bield starts at the top of the business. “We start with the chief executive, or a sponsor they appoint, and agree the problems worth solving,” Gordon said. “We choose the first, and build the Bield Council around it to test every decision along the way.

“The Bield Council is an AI advisory panel of seven voices, built around your key projects, opportunities or problems, that tests each decision before you make it. It does not solve them on its own, but it helps accelerate the work.

“Picture a chief executive deciding whether to launch a new product line, or change how they charge for a service. Before committing, they hear the case from finance, from the customer’s point of view, from the people who would deliver it, and from risk and compliance. The decision is still theirs, but it is a better-tested one.”

Bield also works from the bottom up. “At the same time, we set the ground rules for AI use and give your team one safe, approved tool to learn on,” Gordon said. “So while the key project drives change from the top down, the wider team is safely using AI and learning from the coal face up. What they learn feeds back in, and the business gets ideas and confidence from both directions.

“The answers you get are only as good as the data behind them, so we bring your data in securely and in a structured way, and prove it on safe test data first. Equally, the AI you choose is only as good as the people using it. Your team’s know-how goes in through the questions they ask and the information they give it, and their judgement decides what to do with the answers. Good people, good data, good AI.

“When the key project has proved its value, the structure is in place for you to move confidently and securely to wider adoption, choosing your next AI tools, agents and platforms on evidence, not on a sales pitch.”

Gordon added: “We are platform independent and work mainly with Claude and Microsoft Copilot.”

Gordon explained: “Our work runs in clearly defined stages. A focused, fixed-price discovery leads to building and adopting the right practices around AI.” Discovery takes three days at a fixed price of £3,000, and every later stage is agreed in writing before it starts.

Gordon spent 28 years running IT services for Scottish businesses, the last 13 as chief executive. He is a graduate of the MIT Sloan Entrepreneurship Development Program and has built and run Bield extensively using AI tools. On 19 November he chairs a panel on maximising the impact of technology spend for small and medium-sized businesses at DIGIT Expo in Edinburgh.