AI readiness audit
A short, fixed-fee engagement that answers three questions: where AI would actually pay off in your business, what it would cost to get there, and what has to be true first. You keep the report regardless of what you do next.
The problem with starting from the technology
Most AI programmes begin with a mandate rather than a use case — a board asking what the company is doing about AI. Teams respond with pilots chosen for visibility rather than value, and eighteen months later there are four proofs of concept and nothing in production.
The opposite failure is just as common: a genuinely valuable use case blocked by something mundane. The data is trapped in a system with no API. Nobody can define what a correct answer looks like. The process everyone wants automated is performed differently by each of the five people who do it.
The audit exists to find both — the opportunities worth pursuing and the unglamorous blockers standing in front of them — before you commit a budget to the wrong thing.
What the audit covers
Opportunity mapping
We work through your operations looking for volume, repetition and judgement — the three ingredients that make AI worthwhile. Each candidate is sized by effort and likely return, not by how impressive it would sound.
Data reality check
Where the data actually lives, what state it is in, whether it can be accessed programmatically, and who owns it. This is where most AI plans meet reality, and it is better to meet it now.
Build-versus-buy
For each opportunity, whether an off-the-shelf product already solves it. Frequently one does, and we will say so — recommending a build we would be paid for when a subscription would do is how firms lose clients.
Risk and compliance review
Data residency, regulatory exposure, what your existing contracts permit, and what your risk function will require before anything reaches customers.
Sequenced roadmap
A recommended order of work with rough costs and dependencies — what to do first because it is valuable, and what to do first because it unblocks everything else.
A written report
Delivered as a document you own, specific enough to hand to another supplier if you decide not to work with us.
What we look at
Chosen per project, not by habit. If your team already runs something that works, we use it.
- Process
- volume and handling time
- error and rework rates
- decision points
- existing automation
- Data
- sources and ownership
- API availability
- quality and completeness
- retention and residency
- Systems
- integration surface
- authentication
- existing vendors
- technical debt in the path
- Organisation
- who owns the outcome
- change appetite
- internal capability
- governance requirements
How the audit runs
Two to three weeks, a fixed fee agreed upfront, and a defined amount of your team's time — typically a handful of interviews and access to sample data. No open-ended consulting engagement.
- 01
Interviews
Conversations with the people who do the work, not only the people who manage it. The gap between the documented process and the actual one is usually where the opportunity is.
- 02
Data and systems review
Hands-on inspection of sample data and integration points, so the feasibility assessment is grounded rather than assumed.
- 03
Analysis
Opportunities sized, blockers identified, build-versus-buy assessed, and the sequence worked out.
- 04
Report and walkthrough
A written report plus a session with your team to work through it and argue with the conclusions.
Common questions
What if the answer is that we should not use AI?
Then that is the report, and it is worth the fee. Knowing that three of your four candidate use cases are better solved with a database fix and an off-the-shelf tool saves considerably more than the audit costs.
Are we obliged to build with you afterwards?
No. The report is written to be actionable by any competent supplier, and it is yours. We would rather earn the build on the strength of the analysis than lock it in with a vague deliverable.
How much of our team's time does it take?
Typically five to eight interviews of about an hour, plus someone available to answer questions about systems and provide sample data. We work around your operations rather than pausing them.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee agreed before we start, scaled to the size of the scope rather than billed hourly. You know the number in advance and it does not move.
We already know what we want to build. Do we need this?
Often not — if the use case is clear and the data is accessible, go straight to scoping the build. The audit earns its fee when there are several candidates competing for one budget, or when previous pilots have stalled and nobody is sure why.
Start with a scoping call.
Thirty minutes, no obligation. If we are not the right fit we will tell you on the call rather than after a proposal.
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