Longmead Capital engaged UBDS Digital to establish a controlled, measurable and repeatable approach to adopting Claude across appropriate business processes. The engagement was designed to move beyond ad hoc AI experimentation by creating a structured way to identify valuable use cases, test them against real business scenarios and introduce successful applications into controlled production use.

UBDS Digital developed a five-stage adoption method, Select, Assess, Pilot, Introduce and Review and applied it to a number of different business activities, including its portfolio catalogue management process. The resulting Claude-based capability entered production in September and is now used across the team to ensure that individual portfolio entries are accurate (cross-referenced against original source material) and adopt a consistent tone of voice across different human editors. Human owners remain accountable for reviewing outputs and making relevant business decisions.

Longmead Capital saw opportunities for Claude across information-intensive work such as investment research, asset and portfolio reporting, deal and document review, knowledge access and internal operations. The challenge was not simply to find possible AI applications, but to identify use cases where Claude could improve a real business process while preserving appropriate information quality, security, human judgement, cost control and accountability.

Each candidate use case therefore needed to be assessed against business value, process maturity, information quality, business rules, system access, security requirements, human-review requirements, expected benefit and cost. Higher-impact activities required qualified human judgement and explicit approval controls to remain in the workflow.

UBDS Digital created a structured Claude adoption approach built around five stages: Select, Assess, Pilot, Introduce and Review. Candidate use cases are evaluated individually and placed on a Now / Next / Later roadmap so that opportunities with clear outcomes, appropriate information and accountable owners can be prioritised.

For selected use cases, UBDS Digital supports the configuration of dedicated Claude Projects, approved information sources, project instructions, user guidance and measurable acceptance criteria. Representative day-to-day examples are tested, with quality, time, effort, rework, risk, usage and cost captured before a use case is allowed to progress. Deficiencies are corrected and affected scenarios retested.

The approach begins with lower-risk applications in which Claude prepares information, drafts outputs or recommends options while Longmead Capital staff validate evidence and retain responsibility for decisions. Greater levels of automation are only considered where the necessary rules, evidence, permissions, controls and recovery arrangements are demonstrably in place.

Using this approach, Longmead Capital moved portfolio catalogue management from controlled testing into production. The Claude-based solution enables the team to quickly validate portfolio catalogue information (such as property overviews, acquisition information) against a collection of unstructured data sources. Claude is also used to ensure a consistent tone of voice and style guide is applied, across different human editors, as part of the normal catalogue management workflow.

UBDS Digital supported the production implementation by configuring the corporate style guide into Claude’s source of knowledge, defining the approved information sources and instructions, setting acceptance criteria, documenting user guidance and embedding the required human-review and governance controls. Before the capability was moved into production, UBDS undertook a security review, provided an assessment of the AI-enhanced process against an ISO42001 aligned checklist, and trained Longmead staff in the safe use of Claude as part of this workflow.

The deployment entered production in September and is currently used by across the team on a daily basis, helping Longmead to manage its portfolio effectively as the company continues to scale. Longmead estimates time savings of around 20% with regards to catalogue accuracy reviews, with the AI-assisted style review saves between 60-70 minutes of human time for each major catalogue entry or update. All AI-assisted outputs are reviewed by a senior member of staff before content is made available publicly.

The engagement has given Longmead Capital an evidence-based operating model for Claude adoption and a production deployment against which the method can be measured and refined.

Since the portfolio catalogue management process went live, Longmead Capital has measured consistent time savings of 20% to update catalogue entry compared to the pre-Claude environment. It also saves between 60-70 minutes of editorial review time by ensuring a consistent tone of voice in the house style. This provides a realised, measurable production result rather than an expected benefit from a pilot.

The same Select, Assess, Pilot, Introduce and Review model now provides a repeatable basis for deciding which additional Claude use cases should continue, improve, expand, combine or be retired. Future adoption decisions can therefore be based on demonstrated business value, operating evidence and proportionate controls.