An AI agency in Colombo: seven people, every engagement end to end.
specshop.dev is an AI agency in Colombo, Sri Lanka. We design, build and run AI agents and automations for firms that want the work done, not another tool to learn. The agency is a team of seven engineers, designers and operators led by Janaka Ediriweera. There are no account managers between you and the people building your agents, and every price is published before you call.
A word on the name. On this site, “hire an agent” means hiring an AI agent — a piece of software that does a job. The agency is us, the humans who build it, run it and answer for it. Both are on this page.
AI automation for the work that wears your team down.
- Support and sales agents. First replies, follow-ups, quotes and bookings drafted from your own history, sent only after a person you name approves.
- Ops and finance agents. Bookkeeping entries, reconciliations, invoice chasing, supplier follow-ups. The same approval loop.
- Web agents. Content updates, product changes and landing pages shipped from a written brief, reviewed before publish.
- Delivery engineers. For software teams: features built from a written spec, with your team reviewing the pull request.
- Embedded builders. An AI automations engineer inside your company for three to twelve months when you want the capability, not one agent. Terms →
Salaries start at US$1,225 a month for a junior role. The recruitment fee is US$9,500 for any candidate. A 30-day probation is measured on the share of drafts your reviewers approve untouched. The six CVs and the full offer →
What kind of AI agency in Sri Lanka are you actually hiring?
The Colombo market has three shapes: freelancers on Upwork, offshore development shops that bill by the hour, and small senior teams. We are the third kind, and this is what that changes.
| If you are considering | What is different here |
|---|---|
| A freelancer on Upwork at US$15 to US$40 an hour | A team of seven with a named approver, a probation policy and a company behind it. One person cannot be on call for your queue. |
| An offshore development shop billing hourly | Fixed, published prices. A salary per agent, a fee per engagement. We do not bill hours because you cannot budget hours. |
| A large AI consultancy with a Colombo office | The seven people you meet do the work. No handoff to a bench, no junior team you never spoke to. |
| A chatbot or voice-agent vendor | We build agents that do the work behind the conversation — the bookkeeping, the follow-up, the change — not only the reply. |
| Building it in-house from scratch | Sensible for engineering teams. Our embedded engineer does exactly this with you for three to twelve months, then leaves you able to run it. |
Looking for an AI agency in Sri Lanka, not only in Colombo?
The office is in Colombo 5, but the work is not. We run engagements with firms in Kandy, Galle, Negombo, Kurunegala and Jaffna, and with Sri Lankan companies whose staff are spread across all of them. It is the same team of seven, the same published prices and the same 30-day measured probation wherever you are. Nothing on this page costs more because you are three hours up the A1.
Most of the work is remote by design, because the agents live in your inbox, your WhatsApp and your systems rather than in a room. A first call is thirty minutes on video. The workflow mapping sprint is two video sessions and a written report. After that the agent works your real queue, and the person who approves its drafts is someone you name, sitting wherever your team sits.
We come to you when it earns its keep: the first mapping session for a larger programme, a handover workshop, or the day an embedded engineer starts. Travel outside the Western Province is agreed before it is booked and never billed by surprise. For firms in Oman and the UAE the arrangement is the same one, with people in Muscat and Dubai. If you want the consultancy half of the work rather than the agency half, that is set out in AI consultancy in Sri Lanka.
Agents that learn from your corrections.
Most AI agencies ship a bot and leave. Ours run the agent, watch what your reviewers change, and feed the corrections back every week.
The approval rate is the one number we report, and it is made of your own reviewers’ decisions — which is exactly why we cannot polish it.
Day 1–3 · live
The agent works your real queue behind a named approver.
Week 1–4 · measured
Every approval, edit and rejection is logged. The rate is on your dashboard.
Weekly · corrected
What your reviewers changed becomes what the agent does next week.
Always · yours
Specs, workflows and everything learned stay in your systems, in writing.
// every number on this page is a price or a published policy — never a performance claim
Before you call an AI agency in Colombo.
The questions we hear on the first call, answered in plain terms.
What is an AI agency?
A firm that designs, builds and runs AI systems for other businesses. At specshop.dev the systems are agents that do operational work — support, bookkeeping, follow-ups, web changes, software features — under the approval of a person the client names. The agency is the seven people who build and run them. If you are still deciding whether you need an agency at all, we set the three options against each other in AI agency vs AI consultancy vs freelancer, with prices and what you own after each.
How much does an AI agency in Sri Lanka charge?
Ours is published. Agent salaries start at US$1,225 a month for a junior role, the recruitment fee is US$9,500, a workflow mapping sprint is US$2,300, and embedded AI engineers are priced for three, six or twelve months on the hire AI engineers in Sri Lanka page. Hourly rates in the Colombo market run from about US$15 for freelancers to US$70 for larger firms; we do not bill by the hour. Comparing us against a studio or a consultancy is easier with the price shapes side by side, which is why we published what AI automation costs in Sri Lanka.
Where is your office?
Colombo 5, Sri Lanka: XB5/5/3, Edmonton Apartments. The company is Humanised Technology Solutions (Pvt) Ltd. We also have people in Muscat and Dubai and serve clients in Oman and the UAE.
Do you build chatbots and WhatsApp bots?
When the work behind the conversation is the point, yes. We build the agent that answers and the agent that then updates the booking, raises the invoice or changes the page. A reply on its own is rarely the thing that saves your team time. Clinics in Colombo usually start with reminders and no-show follow-ups, and AI for clinics in Sri Lanka sets out the approval step that has to sit in front of anything a patient reads.
Can we start with something small?
Yes. The usual first step is a workflow mapping sprint at US$2,300 that names your three busiest workflows and the order they can hand over safely, or one junior agent on one queue. Most Colombo businesses ask us about WhatsApp first, and WhatsApp automation in Sri Lanka sets out the approval step that has to sit in front of anything a customer reads.
What happens if the agent is not good enough?
The 30-day probation is measured on the approval rate. If it is not earning its salary, it is let go, and the recruitment fee covers the next candidate. Nothing reaches a client without a person’s approval at any point.
Do you work with companies outside Colombo?
Yes. We work with firms in Kandy, Galle, Negombo, Kurunegala and Jaffna on the same published prices as a Colombo client, because most of the work is remote: the first call is thirty minutes on video, the workflow mapping sprint is two video sessions and a written report, and the agent then works your real queue wherever your team sits. We travel for the first mapping session of a larger programme, a handover workshop or the day an embedded engineer starts, and any travel outside the Western Province is agreed before it is booked.
Do you work with companies outside Sri Lanka?
Yes: Oman, the UAE, the UK and the US so far. Meetings happen in your working hours; the team is in Colombo, Muscat and Dubai.
Read before you call.
- Property is the sector where the same enquiry arrives on four portals at once, and AI for real estate in Sri Lanka sets out the approval step that has to sit in front of any price, any valuation and anything a buyer could read as advice.
- Freight is the sector where the same question arrives on three channels at once, and AI for logistics in Sri Lanka sets out the approval step that has to sit in front of any date, charge or document a customer reads.
- Hospitality is the sector where the enquiry queue is worst, and AI automation for hotels in Sri Lanka sets out the approval step that has to sit in front of anything a guest or a reviewer reads.
- Most quotes that arrive in Colombo with the word AI on them are quotes for a chatbot, and AI agents vs chatbots explains the one question that tells you which one you are being sold.
- Retailers are the most common enquiry we take in the city, and AI for retail shops in Sri Lanka sets out the three jobs worth handing over first and the hours they are worth in rupees.
- Most Colombo businesses ask us about WhatsApp first, and WhatsApp automation in Sri Lanka sets out the approval step that has to sit in front of anything a customer reads.
- Clinics in Colombo usually start with reminders and no-show follow-ups, and AI for clinics in Sri Lanka sets out the approval step that has to sit in front of anything a patient reads.
- If you are still deciding whether you need an agency at all, we set the three options against each other in AI agency vs AI consultancy vs freelancer, with prices and what you own after each.
- Comparing us against a studio or a consultancy is easier with the price shapes side by side, which is why we published what AI automation costs in Sri Lanka.
Thirty minutes. We’ll tell you whether this is worth your time.
Tell us the work that wears your team down. We’ll tell you which candidate fits — and if none of them do, we’ll say so and tell you what does. Anywhere in Sri Lanka, on video or in the room: talk to us and a senior member of the team reads it within one business day.
specshop.dev · AI agency and AI consultancy · Colombo 5, Sri Lanka · +94 76 443 7726. See also: AI consultancy in Sri Lanka · hire AI engineers in Sri Lanka · talk to us.