Mac O’Brien
Building technology companies from Ireland.
Mac O’Brien is an Irish technology entrepreneur and founder of Consulting.ie, working with businesses to apply AI, software and automation to how they operate.
Dublin, Ireland
Mac O’Brien
Mac O’Brien is an Irish entrepreneur based in Dublin. He works across artificial intelligence, software, business systems and technology consulting, and is one of the founders behind Consulting.ie and its technology company, ACMR.
He started in business at 13, reselling sneakers and clothing, then ran a door-to-door window cleaning team and later built websites for local businesses. That work led to ACMR, set up in 2026 to help small and medium-sized businesses put AI to use. He left school before his Leaving Cert to run it full time.
His focus is building technology that businesses actually use, rather than consultancy that stops at recommendations. The company designs and builds AI systems, custom software, automation, connected business data and integrated operating systems that its clients own.
Building Consulting.ie
Mac O’Brien is building Consulting.ie as an Irish AI and software consultancy for established businesses.
The starting point is familiar to most owners. Data is scattered across different systems, people repeat the same manual work every week, and the software a company pays for does not talk to itself. Consulting.ie designs and builds connected technology around the company itself, instead of asking the company to fit a template.
We decide. We build. We stay.
The work spans AI strategy, custom software, automation, integrations, business intelligence, AI agents and ongoing technical leadership once a system is live. Mac’s own time goes into winning and shaping that work, product development, company strategy and building the team.
Philosophy
“Fly before you can walk.”
Mac O’Brien works with a strong bias towards building. A system in front of real users teaches more in a week than a strategy document does in a quarter, so he prefers to ship early, test it against the work, and learn from what happens.
For businesses, that means moving quickly with technology rather than spending months discussing transformation without anything running. Start with one real problem, build something that solves it, keep what works, and change what does not.
Areas of work
Artificial Intelligence
Applying modern AI models and agents to real business operations.
Business Software
Designing systems around how a company actually operates.
Automation
Removing repetitive administrative and operational work.
Data
Connecting fragmented business information into usable systems.
Technology Strategy
Helping business owners decide what technology is worth implementing.
Company Building
Building teams, products and technology businesses from Ireland.
Currently
- Consulting.ie
- Founder. AI and software consultancy working with Irish businesses. Mac leads business development, company strategy and technology projects.
- ACMR
- The technology company behind the Consulting.ie operation and its software work, where Mac works on product development and building the team.
Conversations
Podcast, Off the Fence with Purpose, 7 September 2026
An experienced entrepreneur at 18
Mac O’Brien on starting in business at 13, moving from resale and door-to-door work into web development, and building ACMR around AI and custom systems for Irish SMEs.
Listen on SpotifyPress, The Sunday Times
Small Business
A profile of Mac O’Brien leaving school before the Leaving Cert to run ACMR, a company helping small and medium-sized businesses put artificial intelligence to work.
Writing
LinkedIn
Mac O’Brien on LinkedIn
A recent post from Mac O’Brien about building Consulting.ie. Read it in full on LinkedIn.
Consulting.ie, 10 July 2026
Open models are catching the frontier. Here is what that means for your business.
The best open-weight models now trail the closed frontier by months, not years. For most business problems, that quietly changes the whole calculation.
Consulting.ie, 8 July 2026
The harness matters more than the model.
Two teams using the identical model get wildly different results. The difference is not the intelligence. It is everything built around it.
Consulting.ie, 4 July 2026
The EU AI Act for Irish SMEs: what you actually need to do.
Most of the coverage is written for corporate legal teams. Here is the plain version for an Irish business owner who uses AI and wants to stay on the right side of the rules.
Consulting.ie, 30 June 2026
Europe's AI boom finally arrived. Irish businesses are positioned better than most.
The money, the adoption, and the infrastructure all turned a corner in 2026. For an Irish business, the window to move from watching to building is now.
Selected milestones
Spring 2026
ACMR founded
Set up with four co-founders to help small and medium-sized businesses apply AI, software and automation.
Summer 2026
Building the development team
Travelled to Prague to meet and hire developers for the company.
Summer 2026
Featured in The Sunday Times
Profiled in the paper’s Small Business column.
September 2026
Off the Fence with Purpose
Guest on the podcast episode “An experienced entrepreneur at 18”.