AI at the Core: behind the scenes at team.blue's AI transformation

Across the technology industry, organisations are racing to move Artificial Intelligence from proof-of-concept to everyday operations. At team.blue, the pan-European digital partner for small and medium-sized businesses, that shift is already well underway, anchored by three pillars: clear policy, cultural adoption and a shared technology platform. Our structural advantage sits in a technology group built across 23 countries: a pan-European platform with local market expertise, where we can test ideas together and share learnings across a network of over 4,000 professionals. 

That is why we launched our Enterprise AI Enablement programme in 2026, a group-wide initiative designed to embed AI into the core of how the business operates. The ambition is to become an AI-first enterprise where intelligent automation drives productivity, powers products and services and is delivered in a way that is compliant with the EU AI Act, with EU sovereignty at the core. 

Awareness: Setting the ground rules for safe AI use 

Before AI can scale across the business, everyone needs to understand how to use it responsibly. For this reason, we introduced a group-wide framework setting out clear guidelines on data handling, acceptable use and compliance with the EU AI Act. 

"Standardising AI tools and practices across 4,000 people and 60+ brands could be a real challenge. But what has made me see the complexity as an opportunity is the entrepreneurial spirit at team.blue. People are open, and that gets us further than anything imposed from the top" says Bilal Ahmed, Chief AI and Data Officer, team.blue. 

The policy applies across all markets and employees, giving every team member regardless of function or seniority, the same baseline understanding of what safe, compliant AI use looks like at team.blue. Mandatory training accompanies the rollout, ensuring the policy translates into practice rather than sitting in a document nobody reads. 

This foundation allows team.blue to move fast on AI adoption without taking on unnecessary regulatory or reputational risk. 

Understanding: Building an AI culture from the ground up 

We believe technology alone does not drive real transformation, so team.blue has invested equally in people and culture. In 2025, we launched our AI Champions network: over 230 employees supporting AI adoption by testing and experimenting with new tools and sharing knowledge with colleagues across the business. 

The network's reach so far: 

• Employees engaged across 23 countries 
• More than 53 events delivered, including AI hackathons where colleagues get together to solve problems creatively using AI, live training sessions and virtual workshops.  
• Over 2,200 colleagues reached, more than half of the organisation, in the first few months after the programme's launch. 

This pace of internal adoption matters commercially: a workforce fluent in AI tools is a workforce that can build and ship AI-powered products faster and identify efficiency gains without waiting on top-down direction. Alongside the Champions network, team.blue has launched a structured AI Skill Accelerator programme covering AI foundations, responsible use, and advanced applications. An AI Skills Placement Test ensures every employee starts at the right level. 

Adoption & usage: A proprietary AI platform for the group 

BlueChat, team.blue's internal AI platform, gives employees access to cutting-edge models via API as well as locally run best-in-class open-source models, all within a secure, compliant environment built for both ad-hoc experimentation and in-production usage. 

BlueChat's adoption numbers: 

• 2024 unique users 
• 1.4B tokens 
• 400 + Custom Models 

In parallel, team.blue is piloting workflow automation capabilities and developing a broader platform for building and scaling AI-powered solutions across group companies. 

Looking ahead: what this means for our customers 

As adoption deepens across the group, the focus now shifts from building AI capability to compounding its impact, for team.blue's people and for the millions of SMBs who rely on the tools it powers. 

Our AI-powered operating model translates into faster support and better products for more than 3.4 million small and medium-sized businesses that rely on team.blue's digital tools, powered by a growing internal AI platform. This means helping entrepreneurs launch, grow, and scale faster: from AI-driven site creation that expands the market for the domains and infrastructure we sell, to the AI-powered SaaS solutions that millions of SMBs rely on every day. Because for us, this is what makes online business success simpler.