The AI Readiness Map
Is your business ready for AI?
AI readiness is whether your business has the process, data and people in place for AI to pay. This free fifteen-question check draws one process you run, shows what a system would change and prints the arithmetic. For many businesses the answer is not to buy anything yet.
Not started
0.0 hrs a week
£0 a year
- Repetition, 1
- Data, 2
- Systems, 3
- Process, 4
- People and appetite, 5
The formula, in full
How is the readiness score calculated?
Every figure this page produces comes from the arithmetic below and from nothing else. There is no sector multiplier, no benchmark we cannot source, and no number borrowed from a client we are not allowed to name. The score is five dimensions worth twenty points each, and the money is four lines of multiplication.
In words: we multiply the number of people who touch the process by the hours each of them spends on it, take the share we think is realistically recoverable, multiply by the hourly cost you told us and by 46 working weeks, and then show the result as a range from 0.6 to 1.4 times that figure rather than as a single number.
The 55 per cent starting point is AGMM's working assumption, not a measured client average. We have not run enough measured before-and-after studies to publish an average, and any firm quoting one at you should be asked where it came from. 46 working weeks is a convention, not your calendar. The range exists because the true width of an estimate built from recollection is wide, and a single number would imply a precision this does not have.
When you finish the map, three reasons this number might be wrong are printed under it, generated from the answers you gave.
What each answer counts as
The map asks for bands, because nobody knows to the hour how many people touch a process. The formula uses one figure per band: the middle of it, except where a band has no ceiling, when it uses the floor. The scale is a business of 20 to 250 people. If you sit at the top of an open band the figure on the page understates you, and the result says so.
| You answer | The formula counts |
|---|---|
| How many people touch the process | |
| 3 to 5 people | 4 people |
| 6 to 15 people | 10 people |
| 16 to 40 people | 28 people |
| It depends, and nobody has counted | 28 people, the same as the band above, so not knowing never shrinks the figure |
| Hours each, in a normal week | |
| 1 to 2 hours | 1.5 hours each |
| 3 to 5 hours | 4 hours each |
| 6 to 8 hours, about a day | 7 hours each |
| Two days or more | 15 hours each, the floor of the band |
| What an hour costs you, all in | |
| About £35 an hour | £35 an hour |
| About £55 an hour | £55 an hour |
| About £85 an hour | £85 an hour |
| £120 an hour or more | £120 an hour, the floor of the band |
The limits, published
What this score cannot tell you
Nobody else in this field publishes this list, which is the main reason it is here. A diagnostic that will not say what it cannot see is a sales form with a progress bar on it.
- Whether the hours you told us are real. They are a recollection of your own week, and hours people estimate about themselves are rounded. That single input moves every pound figure on the page, and it is the reason the audit is fourteen days of measurement rather than a longer version of this form.
- Which process is actually your constraint. This prices the one process you answered about. It has no way of knowing whether a different one is costing you more, and in about half the businesses we talk to it is.
- What a build would cost you. Recoverable hours are not a budget. The price of a build depends on what your systems will let us connect to, and no form can see that.
- Whether your data is good enough. Two answers here ask about records and both are self-reported. Records that are inconsistent enough that no system could read them reliably are their own piece of work, and they are the most common reason a build takes longer than it should.
- Whether your team will use it. The fifth set asks, and the answers are worth having, but an owner predicting how their own team will react to a bad fortnight is the least reliable measurement on this page.
- Anything about revenue. Every figure here is time and the cost of time. Work that gets displaced onto other people when this process goes wrong is not counted, and neither is a single pound of revenue.
Common questions
Questions about the readiness assessment
What is an AI readiness assessment?
It is a check on whether a business has the process, the data and the people in place for AI to pay. This one asks fifteen questions about a single process you run, draws it, shows what a system would change and prints the arithmetic, so you can judge whether AI is worth pursuing before you spend anything.
How is this different from the £2,000 AI audit?
This is a free five-minute check on one process, built from your own recollection. The paid AI audit is fourteen days of measurement across every department, with three working sessions and four documents you keep. Use the check to decide whether the audit is worth booking.
Is the AI readiness assessment free?
Yes, and it does not ask for an email to show you the result. Fifteen questions, a score out of 100, a map of the process you described and the three to five things to do before any AI work. The email is only asked for afterwards, if you want the steps sent as a four-week plan.
How long does the readiness assessment take?
About five minutes. Three setup answers and then five sets of three questions. Your answers are kept in your own browser so a reload does not lose them, and nothing is sent anywhere until you choose to send it.
How is the readiness score calculated?
Five dimensions worth twenty points each: repetition, data, systems, process, and people and appetite. The hours and the money use a published formula: affected people multiplied by hours each, multiplied by a recoverable share that starts at 55 per cent and moves with your answers, multiplied by your own hourly cost and 46 working weeks. The whole thing is printed on the page, with what each answer counts as.
Where does the 55 per cent figure come from?
It is AGMM’s working assumption, not a measured client average, and the page says so in those words. It moves down ten points when the work touches four or more systems, down another ten when a previous attempt stalled, and up five when one worked. It is clamped between 25 and 70 per cent.
Will it ever tell me not to buy anything?
Yes. Unless you score in the top two bands and can confirm that the owner and the person who runs the process can each give three hours in the next fortnight, the result says do not buy the audit yet and gives you the steps instead. Where your answers support it, the recommendation is to use Claude or ChatGPT with a written down process rather than build anything.
What does the AI Constraint Audit cost?
The audit is £2,000 for fourteen days and the fee is never deducted from a build, so nobody in the room has a financial reason to conclude that a build is the answer. The 30-minute fit call before it is free.
What size of business is the assessment built for?
UK businesses turning over £1m to £50m, which usually means 20 to 250 people. The questions count how many people touch a process in bands up to 40, hours each in bands up to two days a week, and the hourly cost runs from about £35 to £120 and over, all in. A much smaller business will find the figures large and a much larger one will find them small, and the page tells you which end each band counts.
Which industries does the readiness assessment cover?
Twelve, and each one has its own question bank rather than a shared set of generic questions: construction and £1m plus contractors, accountancy and professional services, logistics and distribution, legal, manufacturing, recruitment, wholesale, property and lettings, private healthcare and clinics, agencies, e-commerce and retail operations, and multi-site service businesses. The niche changes the wording and the process it draws. It never changes the arithmetic.
If you want a person to look at it
The fit call is thirty minutes and it is free
If the map says you are ready, the next step is fourteen days of measurement: the AI Constraint Audit, £2,000, fixed, and the fee is never deducted from a build. If it says you are not, the steps are the next step and they cost nothing but the hours.
Either way, a call is free and we will tell you in it if we think you should not buy anything. That answer costs us the sale and it is the reason the rest of this page is worth reading.
Book the free fit call · The paid AI audit · Where to start with AI · What everything costs · Inside AGMM