AI in Ghent
AI consultant in Ghent who also builds it
A conversation at the Sint-Baafsplein or online, then a working prototype on your own data, in English.
Advice you can click
When you look for an AI consultant in Ghent, you usually want someone who says where AI saves your team time, what it costs and where the risks are. We do that with our hands on the work: after a first conversation we build a version on your own emails, documents or data, so you see what it does before you decide to go on.
Written for leaders of international firms in Ghent and companies abroad with staff here, it covers when to start yourself and when to bring someone in, a first task that suits a company working across languages, what AI costs per month, what to buy and what to build, what the EU AI Act asks today, what Flemish support is left, and where first projects stall.
Which task do you give to AI first?
| Comes back every week | Data already digital | A mistake can be fixed | A person can approve | No tool does it yet | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sorting email and drafting a reply | yes | yes | yes | yes | depends |
| Drafting quotes from a site visit | yes | yes | depends | yes | no |
| Reading invoices and receipts | yes | yes | yes | yes | depends |
| Answering customer questions | yes | depends | depends | yes | depends |
| Writing a monthly report | depends | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Preparing decisions about staffhigh risk under the AI Act | depends | depends | no | yes | no |
Sorting email and drafting a reply
- Comes back every week: yes
- Data already digital: yes
- A mistake can be fixed: yes
- A person can approve: yes
- No tool does it yet: depends
Drafting quotes from a site visit
- Comes back every week: yes
- Data already digital: yes
- A mistake can be fixed: depends
- A person can approve: yes
- No tool does it yet: no
Reading invoices and receipts
- Comes back every week: yes
- Data already digital: yes
- A mistake can be fixed: yes
- A person can approve: yes
- No tool does it yet: depends
Answering customer questions
- Comes back every week: yes
- Data already digital: depends
- A mistake can be fixed: depends
- A person can approve: yes
- No tool does it yet: depends
Writing a monthly report
- Comes back every week: depends
- Data already digital: yes
- A mistake can be fixed: yes
- A person can approve: yes
- No tool does it yet: yes
Preparing decisions about staffhigh risk under the AI Act
- Comes back every week: depends
- Data already digital: depends
- A mistake can be fixed: no
- A person can approve: yes
- No tool does it yet: no
Our own check, filled in for a typical small business. A task with five full dots is your first project; a task with empty dots on fixing and approving stays with a person.
Do it yourself, hire an adviser, or have it built
- Choose to start yourself ifyour team mainly wants drafts, emails and summaries. A business plan of ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot does that, with a short written rule on what may go in; compare them in ChatGPT vs Claude and ChatGPT or Copilot.
- Choose an adviser ifyou first need a policy, a risk assessment or a choice between vendors, and nothing has to be built yet.
- Choose a consultant who builds ifthe task runs through your own data or systems: quotes from your own price list, emails that must land in your CRM, documents that belong in your accounts. Then you want a working prototype, not a report.
- Choose nothing yet ifyou cannot describe the task in one sentence. Start with the figure above: which task scores on all five questions?
Dutch paperwork, English management
Many international companies in Ghent run in English while their suppliers, the tax office and half their clients write in Dutch or French. That gap is one of the most useful first tasks for AI: incoming Dutch invoices, contracts and letters read, summarised in English and filed in the right place, with a person checking anything that costs money. It works because the model reads the document in its own language and nobody retypes it. Where the documents are invoices, invoice automation shows how it runs; for quotes, the AI quote generator.
What AI costs a company per month
| Item | What it is | Price, October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Business | a business seat per employee, no training on your workspace data | 25 dollars a month, 20 on a yearly plan; 21 euros in Belgium; at least two seats |
| Small model through the API | customer questions, sorting, short texts | 0.10 dollars per million tokens in, 0.50 out |
| Large model through the API | long documents, hard questions | 2 dollars per million tokens in, 10 out |
| Building and connecting | preparing your knowledge, testing, linking inbox, CRM or calendar | a fixed price per project after the first call |
Work out your own model cost with the AI cost calculator, see every plan in ChatGPT pricing, and where chatbot budgets really go in AI chatbot cost.
Buy a tool or have it built
| Your task | Buy a tool | Have it built |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting notes | the feature in Teams or Google Meet | rarely needed |
| Customer questions on your site | a chatbot service, if your knowledge is simple | when it must link to your calendar or files |
| Reading invoices and documents | the module of your accounting package | when documents vary or must land in your own system |
| A task across three systems | no tool does it | an AI agent or an automation |
Buying is cheaper when a tool already does the job, and we say so when it does. Which kind of tool fits which work is in AI tools for business.
What EU law and Flanders mean for you now
The EU AI Act applies in stages and reaches companies outside the EU too when their AI systems, or what those systems produce, are used in the EU. Flemish support changed a lot in 2026. The figure below sets out what is required now, what is banned, what comes later and where support is left.
What applies to your AI right now?
- Training your people in the AI they useAI literacy: take measures so that whoever works with AI knows enough to use it sensibly. A short session and a written note often do.AI Act, Article 4, since 2 February 2025
- AllowedFlemish support for an AI project that is genuinely newA VLAIO development project covers 25 to 50 percent of accepted costs, with a minimum grant of 25,000 euros. An off-the-shelf chatbot does not qualify; something nobody in your sector has built yet may.VLAIO, development project
- Not allowedRecognising your staff's emotions with AIA banned practice, like social scoring and manipulation that exploits vulnerabilities.AI Act, Article 5, since 2 February 2025
- A chatbot that says it is a machinePeople talking to your chatbot must know it is not a person. A deepfake of a real person is labelled as AI-made.AI Act, Article 50, since 2 August 2026
- AI that helps decide on hiring, credit or access to a serviceHigh risk, with strict duties for whoever deploys it. Keep a person deciding there.AI Act, Annex III, from 2 December 2027
- Personal data in a prompt or your own modelThe GDPR still applies: a legal basis, a processing agreement with your provider and knowing where the data sits.GDPR
The AI Act also reaches companies outside the EU whose AI systems or their output are used in the EU.
A company registered in Flanders can ask VLAIO's business advisers whether an idea counts as innovation, at its Ghent office on Koningin Maria Hendrikaplein, next to Gent-Sint-Pieters station, or on 0800 20 555. What is left after the SME wallet, fiscal measures included, is in Flanders digitalisation grants. Check which duties apply to your use with the EU AI Act checker, whether you need a written policy in do I need an AI policy, and the whole act for a business in the EU AI Act for business.
Where a first AI project stalls
Being found by AI assistants
AI changes how buyers find you as much as how your team works. More of them ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity for a supplier before they search Google, and those assistants quote the sites they can read. Check whether their crawlers can read yours with the AI crawler checker, and see how we make a business findable in AI answers through generative engine optimization. For Business Centrum we published the site's key figures as a page and a file that assistants read without effort.
Where AI saves time in a company
A chatbot on your own knowledge
It answers from your own documents, with the source next to it.
An agent that prepares the work
It prepares quotes, follow-ups or reports; you approve.
Reading documents
Invoices and expense notes read and ready for the accounts.
The AMOSI morning view
A screen we designed for AMOSI: what is ready that morning. An example of the design; the platform itself is in Dutch.
A first AI project in four steps
- A conversationAt our office, at yours or online: which task costs your team hours every week, and where is the data?
- One taskOne, not ten: drafting quotes, sorting email, reading invoices or answering customer questions.
- A prototype on your own dataNot a demo with sample text, but your real emails or documents.
- Decide with numbersHow much time it saves, how often a person steps in and what it costs per month.
AI for business
How VBS builds your first AI task
We start with one task, not ten. After a first conversation at the Sint-Baafsplein, at your place or online, in English, we measure how long the task takes today and build a prototype on your own emails or documents. After four to six weeks you decide on numbers whether to go on. We build software with AI ourselves: AMOSI, our own marketing platform, went live in July 2026. Where your data still sits in spreadsheets, we build the base first, as for DA Logistics. More in AI for business and AI automation. Book a call and bring an example of the task.
A task AI could take off your hands?
Come by at the Sint-Baafsplein or book a call. Bring an example of the task.
Rather get in touch right away?