AI readiness assessment

What this is

Most organisations we assess have a prioritisation problem, not an AI problem: fifteen ideas, no agreed way to compare them, and an unclear compliance position on most.

We look at what you run, what data you hold and what constraints you are under. You get a ranked list, including what to strike off it.

What we look at

Your existing AI footprint

Everything already in use, approved or not. This routinely finds unassessed AI processing that arrived as a feature of a tool bought for another reason. For organisations in EU scope, this is also where prohibited-practice exposure tends to hide.

Your data, classified for production

For each use case we establish the highest classification of data that will touch the system in production, not in a pilot on sanitised extracts. This one table decides most of the architecture. Skipping it is what kills projects at the information governance gate months later.

Your systems and data quality

Where the information lives, its condition, whether it can be reached programmatically, and how source-system permissions work. Retrieval quality is mostly a content problem: if 40% of your documents are superseded, you get confident wrong answers whichever model you buy.

Your controls and obligations

Which regimes apply, your DPIA position, and what your regulator, procurement panel or assurance board will expect to see. Establishing that in week one is far cheaper than discovering it in month nine.

Your people

Who would own this, whether they have capacity, and whether the process is understood well enough to specify. The most common blocker: nobody owns the outcome.

How it runs

Week 1: Discovery. Kickoff, document and system review, four to six interviews with the people who do the work, and an inventory of current AI use.

Week 2: Analysis. Data classification, opportunity sizing, constraint mapping, and a feasibility check against a real sample of your material.

Week 3: Report and session. Written report, then a working session to challenge the recommendations and agree next steps.

Who it is for

• Organisations with several competing AI ideas and no agreed way to choose.
• Teams that need a costed business case before budget is released.
• Regulated organisations that suspect compliance is the real constraint and want it settled before commissioning a build.
• Boards shown an impressive demo who want an independent view on whether it would survive production.

What it is not

Not a strategy deck. No three weeks on why AI is transformative or why you need a centre of excellence. The output is specific: these use cases, in this order, on this architecture, at roughly this cost, with these risks owned by these people, and these ones dropped.