Manchester-based digital transformation agency CTI Digital has opened public access to Croft, its recently unveiled sovereign AI platform that lets UK organisations run advanced AI on infrastructure they control - keeping their data, documents and AI activity within the UK rather than on third-party platforms hosted abroad.
The launch responds to a growing demand from private companies and charities seeking to balance the productivity gains of AI adoption with the need for greater control over their data, security, regulatory compliance and long-term costs. Croft is the platform CTI Digital built to solve these problems around their internal LLM use, and is now available to external organisations for the first time.
Croft runs on UK infrastructure operated by Nublue, part of the CTI Group, allowing users to run private AI environments in which their data, documents, prompts and outputs never leave their control. Environments can sit within CTI Digital's managed infrastructure or inside an organisations’ own environment.
Chris Burgess, Group CEO of CTI Digital, said: “Over the last twelve months, AI has gone from experiment to everyday tool - but for many, it has also become another monthly software bill. Every new tool creates another subscription, another governance headache and another dependency on a platform you don’t control and can’t see inside. We believe there is a better way. We built Croft as a way of giving us enterprise-grade AI without giving up control of data or costs, a challenge we know is faced by businesses across the UK”
The platform pairs private large language models with an organisation’s own knowledge and systems, so employees can securely find and use information, automate repetitive work and build AI-driven processes around their own data, within a single managed environment.
Croft supports a range of deployment options, including private hosted environments, hybrid set-ups, and dedicated GPU infrastructure. It can also integrate with existing enterprise technologies such as CRM, CMS, customer service tools, ecommerce and other internal business applications.
The external launch of Croft forms part of a broader push by CTI Digital and Nublue to build out sovereign AI infrastructure in the UK, with planned investment in additional AI hosting capacity, dedicated GPU infrastructure, and industry-specific AI services, designed to support organisations seeking greater control over how AI is deployed and managed.
Croft has been used internally for a variety of applications to drive productivity across CTI Digital’s agency teams. Selected use cases include a RAG-based HR agent that answers routine policy questions, an A/B testing solution designed to automate the tracking and reporting of conversation rate optimisation tests, and a tender analysis tool which examines RFPs and procurement briefs and extracts requirements and scoring priorities.
“Most organisations don't need another AI demo,” Chris concluded. “They need practical ways to improve productivity, automate processes and protect data - on their own terms.That’s what Croft is for.”
