Potten End tech consultant creates revolutionary AI app to help dyslexic business owner

An AI app created by a Potten End tech consultant has gone viral on Twitter after he shared his story about helping his friend.

Sixty-year-old Danny Richman first met handyman Ben Whittle, from Hemel Hempstead, after needing help with a leak in his house. After doing a series of odd jobs, the pair sparked a friendship and Danny soon became Ben’s mentor.

The men had talked about a gap in the market for a landscaping and pool installation business and Ben soon became interested in the prospect of starting his own company.

But there was one problem. 31-year-old Ben explained: “I’m dyslexic and I struggled quite a lot with the paperwork side of things. I wouldn't understand how to start a business and I wouldn't know where to go.”

After some encouragement, Ben took the leap and, with Danny’s help, set up Ashridge Pools. As the company grew and began to secure bigger clients, Ben’s text-style emails were not as professional as they needed to be.

Danny said: “Ben was sending the emails over to me. I was having to rework them. And he would take them back and he sent them on to the client from him.” To help save both of them time, Danny created an app, based on OpenAI’s GPT-3 artificial intelligence tool. Ben would enter his text into the software which would then generate an email - ready for him to send to his clients.

Ben said: "I just played with it so much. I was just sending in messages just to see what replies I'd get from it. Now I'm using it on a daily basis. It's actually very, very useful.”

Five months on, Ashridge Pools has secured a £200,000 client - thanks, in part, to Danny’s app. The tool is also helping Ben develop his literacy skills up. He said: “In the last four or five months, my learning has gone through the roof.”

But the AI tool isn’t just helpful for people with dyslexia. After Danny’s tweet was viewed over nine million times, Danny was approached about the other applications this app could have.

He said: “The vast majority of the people that contacted me were people with dyslexia and ADHD, and organisations that support them. They said, ‘If we could offer this to the people we support, it would just be a game changer’.”

“It just became apparent very quickly that there was a huge need for something like this.”

The app could be used in different ways too, like helping someone create a CV. Danny is now in talks with OpenAI about the possibility of a free app using their technology. Reflecting on the help the app has had on him and his business, Ben said: “I think a lot of people are against the tech because they think it's going to take over and no one's going to have any jobs.”

He added: “Obviously this has created a very big opportunity for me so it's done exactly the opposite of what people think.”