Two Weeks · Fixed Scope
AI readiness assessment: find out what is worth building before you build it
Two weeks. A fixed scope. You end with a written document naming the processes worth automating, what each one touches, what could go wrong, and which one to do first — including the honest answer if that answer is not yet.
The expensive way to find out
Most AI money is lost before anyone writes a line of code.
It is lost in the choosing. A team picks the process that is most visible rather than the one that is most automatable, discovers four months in that the data lives in three systems and one spreadsheet, and quietly stops talking about it.
Nothing about that failure is technical. It is a scoping failure, and it is entirely avoidable by spending two weeks looking before spending four months building.
This is that two weeks.
The pillars of AI readiness
Ask four firms and you will get four different counts — some name six pillars, some seven, and the number usually reflects the shape of the deck rather than the shape of the problem. Leverage Automated works from the four functions in NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework, because they are the only ones with a published specification behind them rather than a vendor’s house style.
- —Govern. Who decides what an AI system is allowed to do, who is accountable when it does something else, and where that is written down.
- —Map. Which processes are candidates at all, what each one touches, and what breaks downstream if it is wrong.
- —Measure. What “working” means in numbers before anything is built, so the result can be checked rather than admired.
- —Manage. Who operates it on a Tuesday, what happens when a model changes underneath it, and how it is turned off.
Three practical conditions decide whether any of the four are achievable, and they are what the assessment spends most of its time on: the condition of the data, whether the systems have usable permissions and an API, and whether one named person owns the process end to end. A framework cannot fix a process that varies by whoever is doing it.
What you end up holding
A written document, not a slide deck
A ranked list of candidate processes
Every process we looked at, scored on volume, how repetitive it genuinely is, how clean the inputs are, and what it costs you today in hours. Ranked, with the reasoning shown so you can disagree with it.
What each one actually touches
The systems, the data, the permissions, and the people. This is the section that kills most projects when it is written after the build instead of before it.
The failure modes, named up front
Where a model would be confidently wrong, what that would cost, and what the human-review lane needs to look like. Written before anyone is emotionally committed to shipping.
A first build, scoped
One recommended starting point with a real scope and a real estimate — enough to decide with, whether you build it with us, build it in-house, or shelve it.
Two weeks from kickoff. Fixed scope, quoted after a short call — we price the actual engagement rather than publishing a tier that would be wrong for most people.
The part most firms leave out
You can take the document and walk.
The assessment is a deliverable, not a sales funnel with a two-week delay. If it concludes that your best move is a scheduled script, a process change, or nothing at all this quarter, it will say so in those words.
Hand the document to your own team and build it in-house if that is the right call — it is a perfectly good outcome, and we would rather be the firm that told you the truth early than the one that billed you for four months of discovering it.
If the answer is build it, you already have the scope, and we can start.
What usually comes next
AI agent development
Custom agents built low-code or in code, integrated with what you run, and operated in production rather than handed over.
Explore AI agent development →AI workflow automation
The multi-step processes the assessment ranks highest, turned into automation that runs and keeps running.
Explore AI workflow automation →Questions, answered honestly
AI readiness assessment FAQ
What is an AI readiness assessment?
A short, fixed-scope engagement that establishes what a specific business should automate with AI, in what order, and what would have to be true first. It covers the candidate processes, the systems and data each would touch, the failure modes, and a scoped recommendation for a first build. It is a decision document, and its job is to make the next spend a considered one.
How long does it take and what do you need from us?
Two weeks from kickoff. From you: a few hours of conversation with the people who actually do the work, read access to the relevant systems where that is practical, and one person who can answer questions. Leverage Automated does the rest. The two weeks is deliberate — it is long enough to look properly and short enough that nobody has to defend it in a budget meeting.
Is this the same as an AI proof of concept?
No, and the distinction matters. A proof of concept builds one thing to see whether it works. An assessment decides which thing is worth building. Running a proof of concept first is how teams end up with a working demo of the wrong process. If you already know what you want built, skip straight to the build — we will say so.
What does it cost?
Quoted after a short call. Leverage Automated deliberately does not publish a rate card, and the reason is not coyness: the number moves with how many processes are in scope, how many systems they cross, and which engineers the work actually needs. A headline figure would be wrong for most people who read it. The scope and the timeline are fixed before you commit, and the number comes with the scope rather than after it.
What if the answer is that we are not ready?
Then that is what the document says, along with what would have to change. Data that lives in someone's inbox, a process that varies by whoever is doing it, or a system with no API are all real blockers, and no amount of AI fixes them. Finding that out in two weeks is the cheapest possible version of finding it out.
Sources
The assessment leans on NIST's risk framework for structure — govern, map, measure, manage — rather than a methodology of our own invention. These are the primary documents, free to read, and you do not need us to read them.
Two weeks, fixed scope
Find out what is worth building.
Book a 30-minute call. We will confirm the scope, agree the timeline, and send the quote within one business day — then spend two weeks answering the question properly.