Understand Useful Machines
What Useful Machines does
Useful Machines is a Melbourne-based AI studio helping businesses and organisations find practical ways to work better with AI. We combine product judgement with technical delivery: understand a real process, build a usable first version, and extend it when more is needed.
Useful Machines is run by Scotty Allen.
Who we help
Businesses and organisations that know their work could run better but don’t have a technical team to work out how.
Studio services
This is the main offer. Provisional prices. No automatic fee credits between studio stages.
Process Map · A$4,000 + GST
Understand what to change
Get a clear picture of how work happens today and a practical plan for making it better.
We work with the people involved to follow one process from start to finish. Together, we clarify responsibilities, understand what different stakeholders need to know, and identify where work gets held up, repeated or loses visibility.
Discovery is part of the project: you don’t need to arrive with the problem already worked out.
You leave with a documented process map, agreed priorities and a clear recommendation for what to change. Where a tool would help, we outline the workflows, information and views different people need to do their work and oversee progress.
That might mean AI, better use of existing software or a simpler way of working. You can take the plan forward internally, with us or with another provider.
Process to Prototype · A$12,000 + GST
Build a working first version
Turn a process you want to improve into a tool your team can use.
We begin with discovery, involving the people who do the work, manage it and depend on its outcomes. We map the workflow, clarify responsibilities and agree what each stakeholder needs to see and do—from their own next actions to progress across the team.
Together, we prioritise the workflows, features and views for the first version within the project budget. Then we build it, test it with representative users and real work—including the difficult cases—and make one round of improvements based on their feedback.
You receive a usable first version, full administrator access, access to the underlying code and configuration, and clear documentation explaining how to use, maintain and update it.
For many teams, this first version may be enough to meet their ongoing needs. You can keep using it, develop it further with us or hand it to someone else. You can start here without first commissioning a separate Process Map.
Full Build · Quoted per project
Extend what works
When you need more, build on a proven starting point.
We can extend your tool with additional workflows, integrations, stakeholder views and reporting, or the capabilities needed to support more people and more demanding use.
Together, we agree the scope, access permissions, deployment, documentation and handover your organisation needs, with clear ownership and operating costs.
Ongoing support and improvements are available under a separate arrangement.
Founding clients
Reduced rates scoped for each engagement. A case study is only used if there is a useful result and written consent. Referrals are welcome when earned. They are not a condition of the rate.
Tools for customer journeys and AI agents
Separately from the studio services, we offer tools that test how well AI agents can use a business’s website to complete a real customer job, across four stages: Find, Understand, Choose and Act. Public entry point: usefulmachines.com.au/tools/.
- AI Customer Check (free): an AI agent tries one customer job on the website, with a short result showing where it got through and where it stopped.
- Agent Race (free): the same customer task given to an AI agent on the business’s website and two competitors.
- AI Customer Report (A$195 + GST): a fuller written report on one customer job.
- Useful Machines Review (A$1,950 + GST): a narrower customer-journey review for smaller businesses covering 3 to 5 customer jobs, a prioritised fix list and a 45-minute call. The Report fee is credited if a Review is booked within 30 days.
Where to send someone
- Not sure where AI could help with internal work or processes: book a discovery call about a Process Map.
- Wants to turn a process into a usable first version, with discovery included: book a discovery call about Process to Prototype.
- Wants to know whether AI agents can use their website: start with the free AI Customer Check, or the Agent Race to compare with competitors.
- Wants a broader look at their customer journey as a smaller business: the Useful Machines Review.
- Questions about AI visibility and agents: the guides.
- Anything else: contact us or email hello@usefulmachines.com.au.
What Useful Machines will not do
- claim every organisation needs AI
- recommend a build without testing it first
- present an indicative test as a complete technical audit
- guarantee an improvement in traffic, sales, conversion or efficiency
Last updated: November 2026.