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AI readiness check
Check if your business is ready before you buy AI
Run a short readiness checklist—job, data, owners, review, and cancel path—before you buy tools or custom work.
What you will be able to do
You will score your shop’s AI readiness in one sitting and know whether to start with an off-the-shelf tool, wait, or explore custom work.
Why readiness beats a shopping spree
Buying software before you can name the job creates tool sprawl and shadow use. Readiness is not a certificate. It is five plain questions. Pair this with off-the-shelf vs custom and where to start.
Floor vote
Where are you with this job?
One vote per device. Change it any time.
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The readiness checklist (copy-paste)
Score each 0–2 (0 = no, 1 = partial, 2 = yes):
- Job — We can name one recurring job in one sentence, with a clear “done.”
- Baseline — We roughly know volume and minutes per week today.
- Data rules — We have a written red list of what never gets pasted into tools.
- Owner — A named person owns the pilot (not “the team”).
- Review — Customer-facing or filing-related output has a human check.
- Access — The approved tool is easier to use than random personal apps.
- Metric — We know what we will measure at day 30.
- Cancel — We know how to turn it off and export what we need.
- Process — The underlying process is written enough that AI will not amplify chaos.
- Scope honesty — We are not asking AI to make licensed decisions unsupervised.
0–8: Fix jobs, data rules, and ownership before buying.
9–14: Run a 30-day off-the-shelf pilot on one job.
15–20: Ready for a serious pilot; custom only if measurement shows a real gap.
Signals you are not ready yet
- Nobody agrees how the job works today
- Staff already paste charts or card data into free apps
- You want “an agent” with no step list — see AI agents and agentic AI
- Success means “we have AI,” not a finished workflow
Signals custom may be in play later
- High volume on a unique handoff
- Systems that will not connect cleanly
- Data controls off-the-shelf tools cannot meet
Still earn that conclusion with evidence. Do not skip the checklist.
One-hour readiness workshop
- Pick three candidate jobs; keep one
- Write the red list
- Assign the owner
- Choose one tool class from the buyer’s shortlist
- Put day 30 on the calendar
Field check
Field check
Four questions. Honest answers. No score sent anywhere but this page.
01 / 04
Can you name the one job this piece is for, in one sentence?
Short close
If you cannot name the job, the owner, and the day-30 test, you are not buying AI—you are buying noise.
Keep these
The working rules
Readiness is a scored checklist before purchase: job, baseline, data rules, owner, review, metric, cancel. Then: Low scores mean fix process and ownership first; Mid scores earn a 30-day off-the-shelf pilot; Custom follows measured gaps, not vibes; Pair with off-the-shelf vs custom and a single starting job.