BobbAI Business Support Ecosystem Support

Overview — BobbAI is an AI-powered business-support assistant that delivers personalised support to entrepreneurs and early-stage SMEs. It aggregates, tags and analyses information from the business-support ecosystem, such as funding opportunities, programmes, events and guidance, and delivers it through conversational interaction and tailored reports, with the aim of reducing information overload and improving access to relevant, timely support.

How it is used — BobbAI helps entrepreneurs and early-stage SMEs discover, understand and prioritise business-support information, acting as an intelligent filtering and decision-support layer that matches information from multiple sources to a user's stated needs, business stage and objectives. Business-support organisations and public-sector stakeholders also use aggregated, anonymised insights to inform service design and prioritisation. It is currently delivered under a Scottish Government CivTech pre-commercial agreement.

Scope and limitations — BobbAI provides summaries, signposting and contextual recommendations to help users make their own informed decisions. It is a non-authoritative, advisory tool: it does not make or enforce decisions on behalf of users, determine eligibility for funding or programmes, provide legally binding or professional advice, assess creditworthiness or risk, generate policy, or operate autonomously. It is not designed for high-risk or safety-critical use. Its outputs are intended to complement, not replace, guidance from qualified advisors, public agencies or professional services.

Human oversight — BobbAI does not replace or automate human decision-making; all decisions remain with users and stakeholders. Entrepreneurs decide whether to apply for funding, attend events, engage with programmes or seek professional advice, and stakeholders do not rely on BobbAI for determinations affecting individuals. Platform administrators review outputs, monitor performance and intervene where issues arise. Individuals affected by the system can request a review, raise concerns or provide feedback via an on-platform contact; submissions are reviewed by the platform team and escalated to the Economic Directorate where relevant, and a steering group oversees performance, risks and issues.

• Significantly reduces time consumption for entrepreneurs: by automatically aggregating and filtering information from multiple business support sources, it removes the need to search across numerous websites, newsletters and platforms, and proactively surfaces relevant opportunities and guidance so users can focus on developing and growing their businesses rather than information discovery.
• Improves ease of use and accessibility: the conversational interface replaces complex forms and fragmented directories with a single, intuitive entry point to business support, lowering barriers for first-time founders, underrepresented groups and users with accessibility needs and helping ensure more equitable access regardless of location or prior knowledge of the ecosystem.
• Delivers improved value for money for both users and public-sector stakeholders: automation of data collection, tagging and personalisation reduces the operational cost of maintaining up-to-date support information compared with manual curation, and can reduce duplication of effort and reliance on resource-intensive, one-to-one advisory interactions for routine enquiries.
• Increases the relevance and timeliness of information provided: by matching ecosystem data to individual user contexts, it improves the likelihood that users engage with suitable programmes, funding calls and events, reducing missed opportunities and improving overall uptake of existing support.
• Generates aggregated, anonymised insights that can support more efficient service design and policy development, helping stakeholders better understand common challenges, demand patterns and gaps in provision and enabling more targeted, cost-effective interventions across the business support landscape.