How 5app Accelerated Its AI Strategy And Avoided A 9-Month Custom Build

5app needed to get ahead in the AI race, handle complex multi-tenant SCORM, and juggle competing initiatives, all in a highly competitive space. With Mindset AI, 5app launched VeeCoach, an AI tutor that learners actually love.

Key results:

• Shipped three major initiatives simultaneously without sacrificing roadmap velocity.
• Launched VeeCoach, an AI tutor that has become an effective driver of customer renewals.
• Avoided a costly, up to 9-month custom build cycle.

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About 5app

E-learning SaaS | SME | London, United Kingdom

5app is an award-winning AI-powered learning ecosystem. They help organisations develop skills, engage people and share knowledge with a connected learning ecosystem, comprising an LMS, AI tutor agent, AI coach and AI skills intelligence platform.

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About James Cranwell

James Cranwell is Head of Product at 5app, where he drives innovation in learning technology and user engagement. With over 15 years of experience in the sector, he combines technical expertise with a deep understanding of how people learn. Before joining 5app, James held senior roles at Greystar and Apple, shaping learning experiences and training programs.

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The challenge: Shipping meaningful AI early to meet and exceed customer expectations

The learning market was evolving. New AI solutions—assistants, copilots, chatbots, AI agents—were appearing, answering questions, surfacing content, and reshaping customer expectations. The 5app product team felt the pressure to deliver AI innovation and meet customer expectations.

Customers were eager to adopt AI but didn’t know where or how to start. As James Cranwell, Head of Product at 5app, put it:

"They knew they wanted AI in their platform, but they didn't necessarily know what sort of AI or what it could and couldn’t do."

Time was the critical factor. 5app needed to catch up quickly, deliver immediate customer value, and do it without draining engineering resources. They were balancing multiple projects, and adding yet another big technology initiative to the roadmap wasn’t an option.

Since they had a complicated, multi-tenant system with SCORM files in isolated environments, it presented an additional challenge.

Beyond the operational complexity, 5app had clear product requirements. They needed to deliver something unique and valuable: a true tutor with realistic coaching activities, accessible content, and genuine wow moments.

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The solution: Agentic experience layer that handles complexity

5app evaluated several AI solutions, but they were either overly code-heavy or incompatible with SCORM files. Mindset AI hit the right balance.

Mindset AI solutions that made the difference:

• Agent chat SDK and media player: Pre-built frontend component that eliminated the need for 5app to build a UI that adds workload, requires continued maintenance—but does not create valuable IP.
• Deployment and APIs: Mindset AI’s agent sessions API simplifies multi-tenancy, allowing 5app to programmatically manage, deploy, and control agent behavior at the app, tenant, or user level.
• Knowledge Context with controls: Our ingestion pipeline, APIs, RAG, and content analysis support large-scale SCORM ingestion. They make it easy to offer rich content experiences while allowing for tenant and user data isolation.
• Workflows: 5app can enable agents to guide users through multi-step learning processes, transforming basic Q&A bots into AI agents that run role-plays, coaching scenarios, and more.

"The 5app team's dedication to their customers is clear in everything they do. James and his team have taken a thoughtful and strategic approach to AI – they're not chasing hype; they're solving real problems for their users. That's the kind of partnership we value." – Jack Houghton, Chief Product Officer at Mindset AI.

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The results: An AI coach that immediately wows prospects and customers

The 5app x Mindset AI partnership has significantly impacted three main areas: engineering time, roadmap acceleration, and revenue.

• Maintained roadmap velocity: 5app shipped two new products and packaging, with a new pricing model that increased Average Contract Value (ACV).
• Customer retention: VeeCoach has become an effective driver of customer renewals.
• Saved engineering time: Avoided a costly, up to 9-month custom build cycle that would have required a dedicated new resource for this project alone.
• Minimal maintenance: Requires less than 2 hours of maintenance per month, handled by the product team.

With Mindset AI, 5app customers are now:

• Building VeeCoach into the flow of work to create personalized learning journeys;
• Using the AI agent as a first-line-of-defence tool to answer FAQs for the HR team.

James added:

"We have a market-leading AI coach integrated into our platform—it gives us a stickier product. Customers see the immediate value after experiencing it for just a few minutes. The operational resilience and future proofing are extremely important to me as Head of Product."

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Future plans: Self-service AI and multi-agent orchestration

5app is setting up additional Mindset AI APIs and exploring deeper MCP integrations. The goal is to surface the Agent Management Studio SDK directly in customer hubs, enabling customers to build their own AI agents and workflows without raising support tickets.

“I like the new approach Mindset AI has taken to workflows, leveraging MCP servers. It is forward-thinking. I'm really excited about the potential it offers and all the ways we will be able to integrate it into our platform.” – James Cranwell, Head of Product, 5app.

James is also considering multi-agent orchestration, organizational workflows in which multiple agents collaborate. This could transform how 5app delivers learning at scale.

“Multi-agent workflows and organizational orchestration are extremely interesting to me. They open up real opportunities for how we deliver learning at scale. I’m looking forward to what Mindset AI and 5app can build together next.”

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