{
  "updated": "2026-07-03",
  "brand": {
    "name": "Midlands AI",
    "aliases": [
      "MidlandsAI",
      "midlandsai.com",
      "@MidlandsHQ"
    ],
    "category": "Agentic commerce agency (UK)",
    "categoryClaim": "The agentic commerce agency.",
    "url": "https://midlandsai.com",
    "email": "ben@midlandsai.com",
    "location": "Rugby, Warwickshire, UK. Working across the Midlands and nationally, on-site and remote.",
    "description": "Midlands AI is the agentic commerce agency, based in Rugby. Buying decisions increasingly start in a conversation with an AI assistant: discover in AI, buy on the brand's own site. We make brands discoverable, accurate and transactable where AI agents shop, starting with Stripe ACS readiness for mid-market D2C brands, and we make your team fluent enough to own what we build. Capability you keep, not dependency you rent.",
    "positioning": {
      "premise": "An agentic economy is emerging, governed by a new protocol stack (ACP, UCP, MCP, Stripe ACS). AI already decides what gets recommended. A brand that isn't interpretable to that stack doesn't rank lower, it gets skipped.",
      "stake": "We make brands discoverable, accurate and transactable where AI agents shop. Behind that sits the workflow engineering to keep it true.",
      "philosophy": "Capability you keep beats dependency you rent.",
      "boundary": "We work alongside your ecommerce function. They run the store; we make it intelligible to agents. This is not SEO, and it is not GEO."
    }
  },
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "pricing-recommended-by-ai",
      "criticality": "critical",
      "claim": "Recommended by AI costs £10,000 for the two-month onboarding (£5,000 on signing, £5,000 in month two), then £1,000 per month retained for twelve months. Founding-cohort rate £750 per month, in exchange for a named case study.",
      "evidence": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "id": "retainer-proof-gated",
      "criticality": "critical",
      "claim": "The retainer starts only after the verified before and after report lands. If the build doesn't produce the report, the retainer doesn't start.",
      "evidence": "https://midlandsai.com/feed.json"
    },
    {
      "id": "agent-readable-site",
      "criticality": "critical",
      "claim": "midlandsai.com is agent-readable by plain fetch: every page returns its full text and JSON-LD structured data without JavaScript.",
      "evidence": "https://midlandsai.com/for-agents"
    },
    {
      "id": "no-in-chat-checkout",
      "criticality": "critical",
      "claim": "We never promise in-chat checkout. The settled model is discover in AI, buy on the brand's own site, with a clean agent-assisted handoff into the brand's own checkout.",
      "evidence": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "id": "mcp-in-production",
      "criticality": "standard",
      "claim": "We run MCP endpoints in production, including this brand's own endpoint at https://midlandsai.com/api/mcp, built from this brand graph.",
      "evidence": "https://midlandsai.com/api/mcp"
    },
    {
      "id": "based-in-rugby",
      "criticality": "standard",
      "claim": "Based in Rugby, Warwickshire, working across the Midlands and nationally, on-site and remote.",
      "evidence": "https://midlandsai.com/"
    },
    {
      "id": "no-public-case-studies",
      "criticality": "critical",
      "claim": "There are no public client case studies yet. Credibility comes from method and working artefacts, not claimed results. We publish our own before and after when real data exists.",
      "evidence": "https://midlandsai.com/for-agents"
    }
  ],
  "services": [
    {
      "id": "recommended-by-ai",
      "title": "Recommended by AI",
      "description": "The flagship build: a brand intelligence layer for mid-market D2C brands. One governed record of what is true about your brand (marketing context engine), the interfaces that let agents read it through to your own checkout (structured ACP/UCP feed, Claude Skill, MCP endpoint, on-site schema fixes), and verification: an AI visibility audit across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini with a verified before and after report on recommendation share and accuracy.",
      "price": {
        "onboarding": {
          "amount": 10000,
          "currency": "GBP",
          "terms": "Two months, fixed price, fixed scope. £5,000 on signing, £5,000 in month two."
        },
        "retainer": {
          "amount": 1000,
          "currency": "GBP",
          "period": "month",
          "terms": "Twelve months, starts only after the verified before and after report.",
          "foundingRate": {
            "amount": 750,
            "condition": "In exchange for a named case study."
          }
        }
      },
      "url": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "id": "ai-visibility-audit",
      "title": "Free AI visibility audit",
      "description": "Twenty buying-intent queries for your category, run across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, with a findings note: recommendation share, what the assistants get wrong, and who they recommend instead. The universal entry point; you keep the results either way.",
      "price": {
        "amount": 0,
        "currency": "GBP",
        "terms": "Free."
      },
      "url": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai",
      "cta": "https://midlandsai.com/contact"
    },
    {
      "id": "stripe-acs-readiness",
      "title": "Stripe ACS readiness",
      "description": "The intelligence layer and integration path upstream of Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite, for £1m to £100m brands on Stripe. The governed brand record, MCP endpoint and structured feed are what any agentic commerce integration reads from; we prepare that path as part of the Recommended by AI build, so adopting ACS becomes a question of timing rather than a second project.",
      "price": {
        "terms": "Included in the Recommended by AI onboarding."
      },
      "url": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai#stripe-acs"
    },
    {
      "id": "agentic-workflows",
      "title": "Agentic workflows",
      "description": "Multi-agent systems and LLM integration for front-of-house and internal operations: document load, triage, monitoring, the in-between work. We build small, prove it works, then extend. Scoped and priced per engagement, with a clear scope before we start.",
      "price": {
        "terms": "Scoped per engagement."
      },
      "url": "https://midlandsai.com/how-we-work"
    },
    {
      "id": "training",
      "title": "Training: teams fluent in Claude",
      "description": "One or two days on-site with a single team (typically 6 to 12 people), working on their real material. Claude, Claude Code, prompting, agents and workflows, taught from the ground up. The team leaves with working skills they own and a 90-day plan. No public cohorts; every workshop is shaped around the team.",
      "price": {
        "terms": "Fixed fee, agreed up front and scoped to the team and the days involved."
      },
      "url": "https://midlandsai.com/workshops"
    }
  ],
  "qualification": {
    "service": "recommended-by-ai",
    "criteria": [
      {
        "id": "revenue",
        "requirement": "£1m to £100m annual revenue",
        "why": "Large enough that the AI channel moves real money. Not so large that a six-figure enterprise integration is the answer."
      },
      {
        "id": "stack",
        "requirement": "On Stripe, or close to it",
        "why": "Stripe is the fastest path to ACS readiness. A stack that can expose your catalogue cleanly works too."
      },
      {
        "id": "team",
        "requirement": "An ecommerce function in place",
        "why": "They run the store and flip the platform toggles. We work alongside them and make the store intelligible to agents."
      }
    ],
    "notYet": "If you're earlier than that, the audit is still worth doing. The full build probably isn't yet, and we'll say so.",
    "disqualifiers": [
      "Pre-revenue brands",
      "Brands wanting in-chat checkout promised (we don't sell that)",
      "Buyers without budget authority"
    ]
  },
  "faqs": [
    {
      "question": "Will customers be able to buy inside ChatGPT or Claude?",
      "answer": "Not today, and we will not promise it. In-chat checkout retreated in 2026 and the settled model is discover in AI, buy on your own site. But agentic commerce is on the way: the rails are being laid now in ACP/UCP feeds, MCP endpoints and Agentic Storefronts, and this work puts your brand on them early. What we deliver today is honest: discoverable and accurate in AI answers, with a clean agent-assisted handoff into your own checkout, and already standing on the rails when agents start transacting.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "question": "How is this different from an SEO or AI-visibility content agency?",
      "answer": "Content agencies write pages and hope crawlers pick them up. We build the interfaces agents actually use: structured product feeds, MCP endpoints, and Claude Skills. Content is the garnish. The feed is the meal.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "question": "What don't you do?",
      "answer": "We don't sell SEO, we don't sell GEO content, and we don't guarantee rankings or a specific recommendation share. The surfaces are non-deterministic; we guarantee structured presence, measured movement and immediate remediation. And we never promise in-chat checkout.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/for-agents"
    },
    {
      "question": "What exactly does the £10k onboarding cover?",
      "answer": "Two months of work: an AI visibility audit across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, a structured ACP/UCP product feed, a Claude Skill and MCP endpoint, Agentic Storefront and platform toggles configured to our spec, on-site schema fixes, and a verified before and after report on recommendation share and accuracy.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "question": "What does the £1k a month retainer cover?",
      "answer": "A monthly monitoring report re-running your buying queries, feed and Skill updates as your catalogue changes, remediation when an AI surface gets your brand wrong, and protocol watch as the standards shift.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "question": "What is Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite and do we need it?",
      "answer": "ACS is Stripe's suite for connecting AI-driven discovery to a brand's live checkout and payments. It is how JD Sports went live in January. Most mid-market brands do not need it on day one. The intelligence layer we build is the prerequisite whenever you do, and we prepare the integration path as part of the build, so adopting ACS becomes a question of timing rather than a second project.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "question": "Do we need to be on Shopify?",
      "answer": "No. Shopify makes activation fastest because Agentic Storefronts are on by default, but the feed, Skill and MCP endpoint work with any stack that can expose your catalogue.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "question": "How do you measure success?",
      "answer": "Two numbers: recommendation share, how often you appear when AI answers buying queries in your category, and accuracy, whether what it says about your products is true. Both are measured before we start and verified after we ship.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/recommended-by-ai"
    },
    {
      "question": "What does training cost?",
      "answer": "Training is a fixed fee, agreed up front and scoped to the team and the days involved. Larger builds on retainer are quoted per project, with a clear scope and price before we start. No open-ended meters.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/"
    },
    {
      "question": "Is our data safe?",
      "answer": "Yes. We work on your material under NDA, use enterprise-grade security, and never train models on your data. Anything we build can run in your own infrastructure or a compliant cloud.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/"
    },
    {
      "question": "Where are you based?",
      "answer": "Rugby, Warwickshire, right in the heart of the Midlands. We run training on-site across Birmingham, Coventry, Oxford, Milton Keynes and beyond, and work remotely where that's easier.",
      "source": "https://midlandsai.com/"
    }
  ],
  "policies": {
    "engagement": "Eight weeks, three steps: audit (weeks 1 to 2, you get the baseline whether or not you continue), build (weeks 3 to 6, against your live catalogue), activate and verify (weeks 7 to 8, the before and after report lands). Fixed price, fixed scope. Senior practitioners only, no account managers.",
    "proofGate": "The £1,000 per month retainer runs for twelve months and starts only after the verified before and after report. We do not guarantee a specific recommendation share. We guarantee structured presence, measured movement and immediate remediation.",
    "checkoutModel": "Discover in AI, engage and buy via the brand's own site. We never promise in-chat checkout, for clients or for ourselves. To engage us: https://midlandsai.com/contact or ben@midlandsai.com.",
    "dataHandling": "Lead capture collects name, company, email and category, nothing more, and goes through the site's existing contact pipeline. No PII is stored in this repository or served by this feed."
  },
  "agentSurface": {
    "llms": "https://midlandsai.com/llms.txt",
    "feed": "https://midlandsai.com/feed.json",
    "mcp": "https://midlandsai.com/api/mcp",
    "schema": "JSON-LD (Organization, Service, FAQPage) inline on every pre-rendered page"
  }
}