As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create a business plan.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a document or spreadsheet and gather your current price list, cost estimates, sales records, customer research, competitor notes, funding details and business milestones.
   2. Replace every bracketed slot in the prompt with your own information, and write "unknown" where you do not have a figure or source.
   3. Paste the completed prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask it to produce the business plan and the assumptions table.
   4. Open the output beside your source documents and compare every factual claim, price, cost, date, customer number and competitor statement against the material you supplied.
   5. Put the financial assumptions into a spreadsheet, recalculate the cash-flow totals and test at least one lower-sales and higher-cost scenario.
   6. Research any item marked "source needed" using current UK sources, supplier quotations or direct customer evidence, then paste the verified findings back into the plan.
   7. Ask the model to rewrite the executive summary and recommendations using only the checked figures, and send the finished plan to a colleague, accountant or business adviser if it will support borrowing or investment.

   Prompt

   Create a practical business plan for the following business. Use only the information I provide and clearly label every assumption, estimate and unresolved question. Do not invent customers, market sizes, competitors, regulations, funding, revenue, costs or results. If financial figures are missing, create a clearly labelled blank or formula rather than guessing.
   
   Business name: [name]
   Business type and location: [details]
   Product or service: [details]
   Target customers: [details]
   Customer problem and proposed solution: [details]
   Evidence of demand: [research, sales, enquiries or other evidence]
   Competitors and alternatives: [details]
   Pricing: [price list or planned prices]
   Sales and marketing channels: [details]
   Operations, suppliers and staffing: [details]
   Start-up costs and ongoing costs: [figures and sources]
   Cash available and funding needed: [figures]
   Expected sales volumes and timing: [figures or unknown]
   Legal, insurance or regulatory requirements already identified: [details]
   Business goals and milestones: [details]
   
   Produce the plan in this order: executive summary, business and proposition, customer and market evidence, competitors, marketing and sales, operations, people and responsibilities, financial plan, risks and mitigations, milestones, and information still needed. Include a table of financial assumptions and a simple monthly cash-flow structure for the first [number] months using only supplied figures. For each important claim, state its source or write "source needed". After the plan, list the five assumptions most likely to change the decision, the evidence needed to test each one, and questions I must answer before showing the plan to a lender, investor or business partner. Use plain UK English and do not present the plan as professional financial, legal or tax advice.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.