Service · typically 2–3 weeks
AI readiness, measured rather than guessed.
Before you fund a strategy, a platform or a first agent, it pays to know what will carry the weight: your data, systems, people and rules. In two to three weeks we score all six dimensions, name the quick wins and hand you a written report with three first use cases and a 90-day plan.
Why start here
Most AI budgets are lost early: on a platform nobody can feed with data, or a pilot that legal stops in week nine.
An AI readiness assessment is the cheapest way to find that out in advance. It is short, it involves the people who actually run your processes, and it ends in a scorecard you can hold against your ambitions. No slide deck about the future of work; a diagnosis of your company as it is.
It also de-risks everything that follows. An AI strategy built on a verified picture of your data, systems and skills is a different document from one built on assumptions, and a first agent that starts where the ground is firm reaches production far more often than one that starts where the demo looked best.
If you already know your first use case, go straight to agentic workflow automation. If you would rather form your own view first, our AI readiness checklist is a good start. If you are not sure where to begin, begin here.
- FormatInterviews, system review, scorecard, written report
- DurationTypically 2–3 weeks
- ForCEOs, COOs, CIOs, department heads, founders
- OutcomeScorecard, quick wins, three first use cases, 90-day plan
The six dimensions we score
Each dimension gets a score, the evidence behind it and the one or two actions that would move it. Together they form your readiness scorecard.
Data
Where the documents, records and conversations for your candidate use cases actually live, how complete and current they are, and how hard they are to reach. Many companies score better here than they expect: agents work on unstructured material.
Systems and integration
Whether your ERP, CRM, ticketing, email and document systems offer usable interfaces or need workarounds, how identities and access are managed, and what it takes to let an agent read and write safely.
Skills and AI literacy
Who already works with language models, how well, and where the gaps are. The EU AI Act expects a suitable level of AI literacy in organisations that use AI; we assess it plainly and name the training that closes the gap.
Governance and compliance
Existing rules on data protection and information security, how decisions about new tools are made, whether a works council must be involved, and how far you are from a defensible position under GDPR and the EU AI Act.
Processes
How well the candidate processes are documented, how many exceptions they carry and where hand-offs and waiting times sit. Stable but tedious processes are ideal for agents; processes that change every week are not, yet.
Culture and leadership
Whether leadership shares a view of what AI is for, how teams react to automation, and who would own a first agent. The best-scoring companies are rarely the most technical; they have a sponsor who shows up.
How the assessment runs
Kick-off and scoping
We agree the functions in scope, the interview partners and the systems to review. You name one sponsor; we handle scheduling, preparation and a non-disclosure agreement before the first conversation.
Interviews
Structured conversations with leadership, department heads and the people who do the work. We ask about volumes, exceptions, tools and frustrations, not about AI. The candidate use cases come out of these answers.
System and data review
With your IT contact we look at integration options, data access, security controls and existing licences. Where useful, we run a small sample of your documents through a model to see how it copes.
Scoring and quick wins
We score the six dimensions, identify quick wins that need no new infrastructure and shortlist the use cases. For the top three we sketch a rough business case: baseline, expected effect, effort, running cost.
Report and 90-day plan
A written report, the scorecard and a 90-day plan you can start on the following Monday. We present it to your leadership team and answer the hard questions live.
Who this is for
Companies at the very beginning
You have tried a chat assistant, and now the board wants a plan. The assessment gives you an honest baseline and a first move that fits, whether you are a startup, a Mittelstand company (Germany's mid-sized, often owner-managed businesses) or a corporate function.
Companies with stalled pilots
Something was built, it worked in a demo and never went live. The scorecard usually shows why: a missing integration, no owner, no permission concept, no metric. We name the block and the cheapest way around it.
Leaders who need to justify a budget
A CFO, an advisory board or group headquarters wants to know why AI, why now and why this amount. Three use cases with a rough business case and a plan with milestones answer that better than a market forecast.
What you get at the end
A readiness scorecard
Six dimensions, each scored, with the evidence behind the score and the actions that would move it. Written so it can be repeated in a year.
Quick wins
Improvements you can make within days with tools you already license: better prompts and templates, a shared assistant for a team, a permission fix, a folder cleaned up for search.
Three first use cases with a rough business case
Each with the process owner, the systems involved, the data needed, the baseline metric and a first estimate of effect, effort and running cost. Ranked, with the reasoning shown.
A 90-day plan
Who does what, in which order, with which decision points, and where an agent pilot, data work or a full strategy comes next.
Systems and tools we typically review
The assessment is vendor-neutral. These are systems we regularly meet during the system review and know how to evaluate for agent use; we hold no reseller agreements or vendor certifications.
Frequently asked questions
How is the readiness assessment different from the AI strategy?
The assessment is a diagnostic: where you stand on six dimensions, what to fix first and which three use cases to start with. The AI strategy is the full plan: use-case portfolio, target architecture, governance model and business case, sequenced into a roadmap. Many clients do the assessment first; its findings feed the strategy directly.
What do we need to prepare?
One sponsor, a list of interview partners and read access to the process documentation and the systems in scope. We sign a non-disclosure agreement before the first interview and only look at personal data where a use case requires it.
What if the result is that we are not ready?
Then you have saved a considerable amount of money. Every dimension comes with the actions that would move it, so the 90-day plan simply starts earlier in the chain: data access, a permission concept, an AI-literacy course. Not ready today is a position, not a verdict.
How much of our team's time does it take?
Roughly one hour per interview partner, two to three hours for the sponsor across the engagement and about half a day for your IT contact during the system review. We work remotely or on site in Berlin and across Germany, in English and German.
Does the scorecard cover the EU AI Act?
The governance dimension shows where you stand against the obligations for companies that use AI, such as the AI-literacy duty and the documentation higher-risk use cases would need. It is a structured input for your legal and data-protection teams, not legal advice; the current legal status should be checked with counsel. See our EU AI Act guide.
Related services
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A prioritised, costed roadmap of AI and agent use cases, a target architecture and a governance model, in four to six weeks.
Agentic workflow automation
Multi-step business processes automated end to end by LLM-powered agents across ERP, CRM, ticketing and email, with human approval steps built in.
Data foundations for AI
Pragmatic, incremental data work for agents: inventory, document pipelines, APIs, search, definitions and access control, one use case at a time.
AI training & workshops
Executive briefings, AI literacy for every employee, department workshops that end with working prompts, and agent-builder enablement for your power users. On site or remote, in German and English.
Let's find the first workflow worth automating.
A 30-minute intro call, no slides and no obligation. We listen, ask about your processes, and tell you honestly where AI agents would pay off and where they would not.