Data
Where it lives, who can reach it, what condition it's in, and whether it's complete enough to support the use cases you're considering. Most AI projects fail here, and they fail quietly, six months in.
AI Services · Readiness Audit
AI Readiness Audit
Two weeks. A flat fee. An honest answer about whether your organization can actually support AI right now.
2 wksKickoff to findings session
5Dimensions scored against a fixed rubric
$4,500Flat, credited toward what comes next
Definition
What an AI readiness audit actually is
A structured assessment of whether your organization has the data, systems, workflows, staffing, and governance in place to adopt AI successfully — delivered as a scored diagnostic that names what's ready, what's blocking you, and what has to be fixed first.
It answers whether you can, not what you should build.
2 weeks$4,500 flatCredited toward any follow-on engagement
Free self-assessment
Score yourself in ten questions
You don't need to hire anyone to get a rough read. Answer honestly — yes or no, no maybes. Ten questions across the five areas that determine whether an AI initiative survives contact with reality.
You can name where your most important operational data actually lives, and reach it without filing a ticket.
Yes or no. No maybes.
8–10
You're ready. You may not need this audit.
Your foundation is solid and your constraint is direction, not capability. Skip the diagnostic and go straight to deciding what to build.
5–7
You have the raw material. You need the map.
This is where most organizations land, and it's exactly what the audit is built for. You have gaps you can't see clearly enough to sequence. Two weeks gets you the map.
0–4
Start here, and be glad you did.
A low score isn't a verdict, it's a warning that a large AI investment right now would likely fail for reasons unrelated to the AI. The audit is the cheapest way to find out which foundations to fix first.
Scored lower than you expected? That's the useful outcome. Every question maps to something we assess in depth — and to something fixable.
Assessment dimensions
The five things we actually assess
The checklist is the surface. Here's what a real assessment looks at underneath it.
Before you commit a year and a budget line to an AI initiative, it's worth knowing whether the foundation holds. We assess your data, systems, workflows, team, and governance — then tell you plainly what's ready, what isn't, and what it would take to close the gap.
Sometimes the answer is go. Sometimes it's not yet, and here's the specific reason. Both are worth knowing before the money moves.
Systems
What your existing stack can and can't connect to. Integration debt is the most commonly underestimated cost in an AI implementation, and it's usually invisible until a vendor contract is already signed.
Workflow
Where time actually goes, measured rather than assumed. We look for the expensive repetitive work, not the visible annoying work. They're rarely the same thing.
People and capacity
Who would own this, who would maintain it, and whether your team has bandwidth to absorb a change this year. A tool nobody has time to adopt is a subscription, not a solution.
Governance and risk
Your regulatory exposure, your data-handling obligations, and what review process would need to exist before AI output reaches a student, donor, patient, or the public.
Investment
What it costs, and why we price it this way
$4,500
Flat · two weeks · credited forward
- No hourly billing, no scope creep, no change orders
- Full fee credited toward any engagement started within 90 days
- The report is yours either way — written to be forwarded
You know the cost before you start, and it doesn't move. Two weeks from kickoff to findings session, priced flat so the incentive is an honest answer — not a longer engagement.
Credited forward. If you start any engagement with us within ninety days of the findings session — consulting, a strategy sprint, a prototype build — the full audit fee comes off that project. If you don't, you still have the report, and you owe us nothing further.
We price it this way on purpose. An assessment that only pays off if you hire us for the next thing isn't an assessment, it's a sales call with a deliverable attached.
Deliverables
What you walk away with
Everything below is handed over whether or not you work with us again.
- A scored readiness assessment across all five dimensions, with the reasoning written out
- A triaged blocker list — fix first, fix alongside, or safely ignore
- A ranked opportunity list, ordered by effort against payoff
- A “don't do this” list, with the reason for each
- A live findings session with your team
Process
Ten working days, fixed
The timeline is fixed rather than estimated. Here's what happens inside it.
01
Kickoff and scoping call
Day 1 — ninety minutesWe agree on which workflows are in scope, who we need to talk to, and what data access boundaries apply. You leave with a schedule and a short list of things to gather.
- Scope agreement
- Interview schedule
- Access boundaries in writing
02
Interviews and systems review
Week 1Four to six conversations with the people doing the work, plus a review of your tooling and data structure. We talk to operators, not only leadership — the gap between how work is described and how it happens is usually where the findings are.
- 4–6 stakeholder interviews
- Tooling review
- Data structure review
03
Scoring and analysis
Week 2Each of the five dimensions gets scored against a consistent rubric, so your result is comparable to a benchmark rather than a matter of our opinion. Blockers get separated into “fix before you start” and “fix as you go.”
- Rubric scoring
- Blocker triage
- Opportunity ranking
04
Findings session and report
Day 10A working session walking your team through what we found, followed by the written report. We stay for the questions, including the uncomfortable ones. The report is written to be forwarded to someone who wasn't in the room.
- Live walkthrough
- Written report
- Q&A with your team
Qualification
Is the audit right for you?
Book it if…
- You scored between 0 and 7 on the self-assessment above.
- Leadership is being asked to approve AI spending and nobody can say confidently whether the organization can support it.
- You've tried off-the-shelf AI tools and they didn't stick, and you're not sure whether that was the tool or you.
- You're being pitched a large implementation and want an independent read before you sign.
- You handle regulated or sensitive data and need to know your exposure before anything touches a model.
Skip it if…
- You scored 8 or higher. Go straight to AI Consulting & Strategy or an AI Strategy Sprint.
- You need a specific tool evaluated rather than your organization assessed. That's a shorter conversation, and it's free — just ask.
- You want a document that supports a decision leadership has already made. Our findings go where the evidence goes.
What comes next
Where the audit points you
The audit tells you whether you can and where the gaps are. Where you go next depends on what it finds.
AI Consulting & Strategy
Four to eight weeks producing a prioritized, sequenced roadmap. The natural next step when the audit says you're ready and the question becomes what to build first.
Go nextAI Strategy Sprint
One week, one room, a ranked roadmap. For teams who came out of the audit with candidate ideas and momentum they don't want to lose.
Go nextAI Prototype & Build
A working version of the thing, built small enough to test cheaply. For when the audit confirms one opportunity is clearly worth proving out.
Go nextCredibility
Who we run these for
Public universities and private colleges, foundations and nonprofits, health systems, and civic institutions — places where a decision has to clear a privacy review, a procurement process, and a board before it ever reaches a user. Those constraints are exactly why an honest readiness answer is worth more there than anywhere else. A failed pilot at a startup is a bad quarter. At a university it's a governance problem.
Questions
The things teams ask us first
Find out whether the foundation holds
Two weeks, a flat fee, and a report you can forward. Tell us where you are and we'll tell you honestly whether the audit is the right next move.
Not sure yet? Take the 10-question read.
Book the audit