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SPAIK

About SPAIK

AI is not a software problem. It is a people problem.

SPAIK is a Dutch AI consultancy and training company, founded in 2024 in Amsterdam. We build AI that mid-market companies actually use, and we train the people who take it over from us.

Ink drawing: the jump from experimenting with AI to running it in production

From the founder

People, change and technology. Those three always interested me most, but I never quite got hold of the third one. At Randstad I built customer experience from nothing, after that I helped companies speed up their processes. It was always about behaviour, and the technology always stayed at arm's length. Until AI came along. The first technology I understood, and the one that made the bridge buildable. That is why SPAIK exists.

What I run into most since then is not a technical problem. It is fear, and it is almost never said out loud. Am I making my own work redundant? Will I still be needed here in a year? That question sits underneath nearly every rollout that stalls, and while nobody asks it, nothing changes.

I have learned not to take that discomfort away too quickly. As long as it stays clear where the friction really is, the answer usually comes from the group itself. So my first question is not which tool you need, but what you are proposing to your people. If a machine takes over part of their work, what is the trade? What do they get back, what will they do instead, and who says that out loud?

Guardrails belong with that. They sound like a brake and they do the opposite: they make new behaviour obvious and old behaviour impossible. Without them everything stays non-committal, and non-committal is exactly how you lose a year.

And that is where the opportunity sits. You will not stand out because of the AI you have, everyone will have that. You stand out by where you put your people: on the work that actually matters.

Where this has to end up is you not needing us. We are not here to keep doing it for you; everything we build we hand over. You do not get there on your own. You need someone who reads a process, someone who builds, and someone who keeps a department going when it gets awkward. Those ten people are further down, and they are the reason this works.

Jochem van Laren, founder

LinkedIn
Jochem van Laren, founder of SPAIK

What goes wrong almost everywhere

Hand out licences, run a training session, hope adoption follows. It is what most organisations do. We tend to arrive after it has gone wrong, and we see the same thing every time: most of those licences sit unused after the first month. Enthusiasm peaks around week three and then collapses, because the output is too generic, too often wrong, or simply not usable.

And the other side of it is bigger than people expect. The ones who really adopt AI do not get a fifth faster; they start doing different work, the work that used to be left undone. That is where the difference comes from, and the gap widens every month.

Ink drawing: your best people doing work a computer could do

So what do we do differently

We start with interviews, not with tools

Before you can free people up, you have to see how the work really goes. Not the version in the process documentation, but the handoffs, the workarounds, the exceptions that run on tribal knowledge. That knowledge lives in people, not in systems, and picking up on it is human work.

We build alongside your systems, not inside them

Customising an ERP is a bigger investment and leaves you less room to change your mind. So the automation sits next to it: your system of record stays the source of truth, the AI reads, interprets and prepares.

We train the people who take it over

Handover is not the final step of a project, it runs from day one. Internal AI leads learn to build and improve, and colleagues in IT manage the platform. Our last day should not be the day it stops working.

Johanneke Behrend
“I have collaborated with multiple parties, but I truly see SPAIK as a partner who thinks along with us and acts proactively, my team is engaged and faster than ever.”
Johanneke Behrend Commercial Director, Movir
See what that looks like per engagement →

That it works

Four projects we are allowed to describe in full, each with the number we measured.

Robert Broeckmans
“AI is a topic everywhere. The real challenge is creating concrete value with it. Together we tackled a recognisable problem and translated it quickly into a practical solution that works right away.”
Robert Broeckmans Finance & IT Director, SIG Benelux

The SPAIK team

Who you get at the table and who builds alongside you.

Jochem van Laren

Jochem van Laren

Founder & CEO

Sits down with the leadership team, then walks the floor.

Jan Bolle

Jan Bolle

Organizational Transformation

Economist and organisational psychologist, on the people side of AI.

Jan Jaap van Noort

Jan Jaap van Noort

Delivery Lead

From the first conversation to delivery, and builds along.

Ted Blankers

Ted Blankers

AI Automation Engineer

Builds inside the client's own systems, from Azure to Copilot.

Duco Gaillard

Duco Gaillard

Data Scientist

Builds company brains that cite a source with every answer.

Brahma Behrend

Brahma Behrend

AI Automation Engineer

Builds the Kickstarts and wrote down how we do it.

Joris Touw

Joris Touw

AI Automation Engineer

Builds and facilitates hackathons with clients.

Mike Krom

Mike Krom

AI Automation Engineer

Makes incoming mail land with the right team on its own.

Benjamin van Splunder

Benjamin van Splunder

Working student

Builds and tests automations and prepares client material.

Fay van der Aa

Fay van der Aa

Founder support & Events

Runs planning, contracts and events for the whole team.

Partners

Gwen Roelofs

Gwen Roelofs

Commercial Partner

Robbert Paul Ferket

Robbert Paul Ferket

Commercial partner

Maarten Kaaij

Maarten Kaaij

Technical partner

Philip de Leeuwe

Philip de Leeuwe

Commercial partner

Advisors

Joep de Caluwé

Joep de Caluwé

GTM Advisor

Jan van Casteren

Jan van Casteren

Strategy Advisor

Clients we've worked with

We work with Dutch mid-market companies and a handful of corporates, including SIG Benelux, Movir, Verweij Houttechniek, Heineken, De Hypotheker, FedEx, BAM Wonen and Nationale-Nederlanden. A non-exhaustive list of named clients:

Trusted by Movir, NN, De Hypotheker, BeFrank, BAM Wonen, FedEx, Havensteder and SIG Benelux, among others. Movir: marketing output 3 tot 4 keer faster. SIG: 73% of order emails become a draft order automatically.

Get in touch

SPAIK B.V. is registered in Amsterdam (KVK: 95243763). Office: Vijzelstraat 68, 1017 HL Amsterdam. For consulting and training enquiries, email info@spaik.io or message us on LinkedIn.

Which process should you start with?

We know that after a half-hour call. Then you also know whether we are the right partner.

Jochem van Laren

Founder & CEO