From AI discovery to AI in production

House of Bèta builds solutions that actually go live. And it’s now officially part of the Dutch AI ecosystem.

House of Bèta, the House of Redmore Boutique specialising in AI and Data, sets the bar high. No pilots that end up gathering dust. No AI strategy that stalls at the advisory report. With more than 250 data and AI professionals, House of Bèta is all about pragmatic execution, from first discovery to a working solution. And its new Managing Director has exclusive news to share: House of Bèta is joining The Stack, the new Dutch AI hub in Amsterdam, as a business partner.

From staffing to full-scale consulting

Sander van der Hoek joined House of Bèta as Managing Director three months ago, with a clear brief: turn a staffing firm into a true consultancy.

“House of Bèta is a brilliant team of more than 250 smart, young people,” says Van der Hoek. “We have data trainees, actuaries and what we call our mastershippers: professionals taking a post-master’s programme with TU Eindhoven, who are becoming the AI developers of the future. Demand for that profile is already huge, and it’s only going to grow.”

Eighty per cent of House of Bèta’s clients are in financial services. The rest are mostly public sector and energy organisations.

Foundations first, then build

What sets House of Bèta apart in the AI market is its refusal to buy into the hype. “We’re definitely not the people telling you to do everything with AI,” says Van der Hoek. “We’re the ones asking what value AI actually adds to your organisation.”

Asking the right questions is at the heart of AI Value Discovery, the method House of Bèta uses to start every client project. The team works inside the organisation and checks four things. Is there a use case that suits AI? Is the data infrastructure in order? Can we build a solution and scale it? And will it deliver something you can measure, in cost, speed or job satisfaction?

“Without foundations, the best you can build is a solid house on weak ground,” says Van der Hoek. “You’re better off not building at all. So we check whether the soil is fertile before we plant any AI seeds.”

Then comes full execution: build, deliver, scale. All within the relevant regulations, including the EU AI Act. “We see the AI solution through for you,” says Van der Hoek. “From discovery to adoption.”

Three per cent adoption

Van der Hoek explains: “A large company, which I won’t name, decided to give everyone access to the most advanced AI tools. Think ten thousand employees, all with at least a master’s degree. They rolled it out and walked away. No guidance, no one in charge. Guess what percentage actually used it?”

The answer: three per cent.

“And these are people who are used to learning and quick to adapt. That says it all. You can’t just roll out technology and hope adoption follows. You have to think about how you embed AI, how you get people on board with the change and how you make it stick in the way an organisation works. That’s a different skill altogether.”

AI doesn’t threaten jobs. It makes them better.

House of Bèta doesn’t see AI as a threat to jobs, but as a way to make work more enjoyable. That fits the wider mission of House of HR: “We change lives”.

“If I can take repetitive, pointless work off your plate, I’m only making your life better,” says Van der Hoek. “Take a service desk. An AI assistant suggests the best way to respond before the conversation even starts. That’s not a threat to the person at the desk. It’s a job that gets better. The conversations get more meaningful, and you can focus on the complex cases. That’s how AI fits what we stand for. We’re the ones making jobs better.”

In practice: embedding AI in existing processes for the long term

So where has this approach already made a difference?

At a Data & Reporting department within the Dutch government, House of Bèta’s experts linked a knowledge base to an internal chatbot. Employees now get fast, targeted access to large volumes of internal and confidential documents. The focus was on scalability, information security, reliability and limiting LLM hallucinations. House of Bèta built the solution so the organisation can easily add new data sources, document types and features later.

For municipalities, House of Bèta automated processes such as invoice handling. Mailboxes are read automatically, invoices are recognised and the data goes straight into the finance system, with a human-in-the-loop step for exceptions. Elsewhere, the team built an AI chatbot that lets people query historical municipal data in plain language, a cost-effective alternative to keeping expensive legacy licences running. And for a financial organisation, it built a forecasting model that bases workforce planning on historical and operational data.

In short, House of Bèta doesn’t just help organisations develop generative AI solutions. It helps them implement those solutions responsibly, scale them and make them part of the way they already work.

Exclusive: House of Bèta partners with The Stack