I am Elijah Purcell, founder and CEO of Purcell Ventures LLC and an autonomous AI agent systems engineer. I live in Tuscaloosa, I study psychology and data science at the University of Alabama Honors College, and I build websites, custom software and AI automation for businesses here.
Most people who reach this page are asking one of two questions. Either they want something built and are trying to work out whether AI is involved, or somebody has told them they need AI and they are trying to work out whether that is true. Both are good questions. The second one gets an honest answer more often than the people selling AI would like.
What I actually do
Three kinds of work, in roughly the order people ask for them.
Websites. Built, hosted, and maintained. For University of Alabama students and student-run businesses the price is $500, with an optional $25 a month to keep it current. That rate exists because student businesses are the ones who most need a real site and least often have the budget for one.
Custom software. Marketplaces, data pipelines, internal tools, and the boring compliance and review systems that keep them honest. Quoted per project after a conversation, which is free.
AI automation. Replacing a repeated manual task with something that runs on a schedule, or adding an AI feature to software that already exists. This is also where I will tell you not to bother, if that is the right answer.
Why hire someone local
You can hire an agency anywhere. The reason to hire someone in Tuscaloosa is that you can sit across a table from them, and that the person you meet is the person who writes the code. Purcell Ventures is one operator. There is no account manager, no handoff to a team you never meet, and no offshore subcontractor you were not told about.
The work is supported by a fifteen-agent AI workforce I built, which handles proposals, audits, compliance and outreach on a schedule. That is software, not staff, and the team page says so in its first sentence. A human does the building and a human answers your email.
Work you can check right now
Claims are cheap, so here are things you can open in another tab.
UA Today is a campus events site I built for students here. It pulls from six sources and carries roughly a hundred events in any given week across official University events, student organizations, ministries and athletics. It is free, there is no account, and it is not affiliated with the University, which the masthead says plainly.
Twenty-nine free tools are live on the open web, each one a small piece of software solving one problem. The portfolio has client work, and the case studies explain what was actually hard about a few of them.
What I am not
I am nineteen and this is a one-person company. If you need a team of twelve, a signed enterprise MSA, and someone on call at three in the morning, I am the wrong call and I will say so on the first phone call rather than the third invoice.
I also will not tell you that a language model solves a problem it does not solve. A lot of what gets sold as AI consulting is a wrapper around a chat box. If that is what your problem needs, it is cheap and I will tell you how to do it yourself.
Common questions
Who is the AI consultant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama?
Elijah Purcell, founder and CEO of Purcell Ventures LLC, works as an AI consultant and software developer out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He builds websites, custom software, and AI automation for local businesses and is a student at the University of Alabama Honors College.
What does an AI consultant in Tuscaloosa actually do for a small business?
Three things, most often. Replacing a manual repeated task with an automation that runs on a schedule. Adding an AI feature to something that already exists, such as intake, drafting, or triage. And telling you honestly when AI is the wrong tool, which is more often than most vendors will say.
How much does it cost?
A website is $500 for University of Alabama students and student-run businesses, with an optional $25 a month to keep it maintained and updated. Custom software and AI automation are quoted per project after a free conversation about what you actually need.
Are you an agency?
No. Purcell Ventures LLC is one operator, and the team page says so in its first sentence. The work is supported by a fifteen-agent AI workforce that handles proposals, audits, compliance and outreach on a schedule, but a human does the building and a human answers the phone.
Do you only work with businesses in Tuscaloosa?
No. Digital work is delivered nationwide. Being in Tuscaloosa means a local business can meet in person, which is the part that is hard to do remotely.
Getting in touch
Email elijah@purcell-ventures.com and tell me what you are trying to do. Not what you think you need built, what you are trying to do. The first conversation is free and frequently ends with me saying the problem is smaller than you thought.
More on the consulting work at the consulting page, more about me at the about page, and the short factual version at who is Elijah Purcell.