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.
Two weeks · Flat fee · Credited forward
before you build
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 auditactually 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 tells you if you're ready to start, not what to build once you are.
2 weeks$4,500 flatCredited toward any follow-on engagement
2 weeksKickoff to findings session, fixed
5Dimensions scored against one rubric
4–6Stakeholder interviews with operators
10 daysTo the live findings walkthrough
Assessment dimensions
The five thingswe 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.
Free self-assessment
Score yourselfin 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.
If someone asked you right now, “where does our most important data actually live?”... could you point to it without opening a ticket?
Gut answer is the right answer. No maybes, no half credit.
Most AI failures aren't AI problems. They're “nobody actually knew where the data was” problems wearing an AI costume.
1 / 10
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.
Investment
What it costs, and whywe price it this way
Credited forward within 90 days
$4,500
Flat · two weeks · report is yours either way
- No hourly billing, no scope creep, no change orders
- Full fee credited toward any engagement started within 90 days
- A live findings session with your team, not just a document
- The report is yours either way, written to be forwarded
Deliverables
What youwalk 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
Day 1: ninety minutes
Kickoff and scoping call
We 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.
02
Week 1
Interviews and systems review
Four 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.
03
Week 2
Scoring and analysis
Each 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.”
04
Day 10
Findings session and report
A 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.
Qualification
Is the auditright 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 auditpoints 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 werun 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 teamsask us first
Find out whetherthe 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