About Salix AI
Salix AI (Pty) Ltd is a consultancy based in Johannesburg, South Africa, founded and led by Murray Crichton. Salix AI helps businesses solve operational problems. We create value early, confirm the process and data, and then evolve the right system in practical stages: better spreadsheets, apps, automations, dashboards, AI workflows, custom software, or hybrid architecture, using platforms such as Microsoft’s Power Platform where they fit.
Why Salix AI exists
Salix AI began with apps, workflows, and dashboards built on Microsoft’s Power Platform, because that was often the quickest way to turn a business problem into a working system.
AI has changed that, though not in the simplistic way people sometimes suggest. Sometimes that platform is still the right choice. Sometimes a custom system is better. And sometimes the next useful step is not an app at all: a better spreadsheet, a confirmed data structure, a clearer process, or a project-management rhythm that finally gives a team control.
The value has moved. It is less about knowing one tool and more about knowing what should be improved first, why it matters, how to make it safe, and how to keep it working after the first demo. That is where Salix AI sits.
AI makes software easier to build. It does not make business systems easier to operate.
Almost anyone can now produce a working demo in days. Turning that demo into a system a business can rely on (correct data, real adoption, security, support, and evidence that it is still behaving as models and prompts change) is the harder job, and the one that matters. Salix AI is built around that job.
How Salix AI works
Every engagement follows the same four-stage shape: Diagnose, Design, Deliver, Operate.
Diagnose. Salix starts with the operational problem, not the tool. Most engagements begin with the AI & Systems Opportunity Review - a short, fixed-scope diagnostic that identifies the next useful improvement, which is not always an app.
Design. Before anything is built, the process and the data are confirmed with the people who own them. The right stage of system is chosen for where the organisation is now - sometimes a better spreadsheet or an operating rhythm before any software.
Deliver. Useful value comes early, and the system matures in stages around real work. AI-assisted development shortens the build, but production still demands engineering discipline: code review, testing, security checks, documentation, and deployment control.
Operate. Systems earn trust in operation, not at launch. What Salix AI builds, it looks after: monitoring, patching, disciplined releases - and for AI workflows, the context, traces, and private evals that show the system is still doing its job as models, prompts, and data change.
The services page describes each stage in detail, along with the three ways most engagements start. The case studies show what this approach has produced.
Our people
Salix AI brings together experienced consultants who combine strategic thinking with hands-on technical delivery to solve complex business challenges.
Founder & Director
Murray Crichton
Director, Salix AI (Pty) Ltd
Murray founded Salix AI to help South African businesses unlock real value from technology. He combines expertise in Microsoft Power Platform – Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate – with a strategic consulting background shaped by engagements in financial services, defence, construction, and the public sector.
Before founding Salix, Murray served as Principal Consultant at FeverTree Consulting, where he led operational improvement and data-driven transformation projects across government, FMCG, and financial services. His experience includes establishing a Strategic Execution Office for a South African bank, managing a multi-million-rand corporate acquisition, and leading strategic planning for a 1,200-person defence organisation.
Murray’s approach centres on building solutions that people actually use – combining AI, automation, and business intelligence with a clear focus on practical outcomes.
Associate network
Heather Eb
Director, EBC
Technology Strategy & Operations
With over a decade of experience in organisational strategy, operations, and product development, Heather brings a proven ability to turn around business performance and strengthen customer experience. Her track record as both COO and CPO spans business turnarounds delivering significant financial gains and product-led growth initiatives that improved retention and customer satisfaction. Heather partners with Salix AI clients to develop technology strategies and transformation roadmaps.
Joel Jackson
Principal Consultant, FeverTree Consulting
Management Consulting & Implementation
Joel brings over ten years of management consulting experience with a foundation in civil engineering and a sharp focus on turning strategy into operational reality. As Principal Consultant at FeverTree Consulting, he has led implementation-focused engagements across government, financial services, FMCG, and oil & gas — from operations improvement and process redesign to programme delivery and change management. Joel strengthens Salix AI’s capacity for structured consulting, ensuring that technology initiatives are grounded in sound business cases and delivered with discipline.
William Heyneman CA(SA)
Chartered Accountant, CA(SA)
Audit & Assurance Automation
William is a qualified Chartered Accountant with close to a decade of progressive experience in audit and assurance at PKF South Africa, where he rose from Technical Supervisor to Head of Assurance. His deep understanding of audit workflows, financial reporting, and compliance processes makes him an invaluable partner in developing Salix AI’s offering for accounting and audit firms — identifying where AI and automation can streamline engagements, reduce manual effort, and improve audit quality.
Deliberately small
Salix AI is deliberately small and senior-led. There is no junior bench learning on your budget and no hand-off between the person who scopes the work and the person who does it. You get direct senior attention without the overhead of a large firm.
Where an engagement needs specialist review or additional delivery capacity, Salix AI brings in senior independent specialists under its own delivery model: architecture, code, and security review; data and reporting work; assurance on business cases and financial models. Salix AI remains the relationship owner and the delivery lead throughout.
Start with the problem
Every engagement starts the same way: an AI & Systems Opportunity Review, a paid, fixed-scope diagnostic of one to three weeks that identifies the next useful improvement and what it is worth, before you commit to a build. You leave with findings you can act on, with us or without us.
info@salixai.com · +27 686 474243