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The AI Readiness Checklist
Twelve questions that tell you whether your business is ready to automate something — and which process to pick first. Work through it honestly; the uncomfortable answers are the useful ones.
The process
Pick one process before you start — the one that annoys you most. Answer all twelve about that one thing.
Does it happen at least twenty times a week?
Below that, the build rarely pays back. High-value exceptions exist, but they're exceptions.
Could you write down the rules on one page?
If two people on your team would write different rules, that's the real problem and no software will fix it.
Do you know roughly how many hours it costs you a month?
An estimate is fine. Without a number, you can't tell afterwards whether it worked.
The data
Automation is mostly plumbing. These three questions predict how much of it you'll need.
Does the information live somewhere a computer can read?
A calendar, a CRM, a spreadsheet, an inbox — all fine. A whiteboard and a colleague's memory are not.
Is there one version of the truth?
Three price lists that disagree will make an agent confidently wrong. Reconcile them first; it's cheaper.
Do you know what data would be involved, and how sensitive it is?
Health, financial and identity data are all workable, but they change what you should ask a vendor for.
The people
Most failed projects fail here, not in the technology.
Is there one person who owns this process?
Someone has to answer questions during the build and make the small calls. Shared ownership means nobody.
Does the team doing this work today know it's happening?
People who find out from the software will find ways around it. Bring them in during discovery, not at launch.
Can you name the person who will change it in six months?
Prices, hours and services all change. If nobody owns that, the agent will start telling customers things that aren't true.
The stakes
What happens when it gets something wrong, because eventually it will.
What's the worst realistic mistake?
A double-booked appointment is recoverable. A wrong dosage or a mispriced contract is not. Match the safeguards to the answer.
Is there an obvious point where a human should approve?
Keeping one human click before anything goes to a customer costs almost nothing and prevents most bad days.
Could you turn it off tomorrow and carry on?
If the answer is no, you're not ready. Anything you can't switch off is a dependency, not an improvement.
Reading your answers
- Ten or more yes. You're ready. Pick this process and get a fixed quote for it.
- Six to nine. Nearly. The no's are usually about ownership or data tidiness, and both are fixable in a couple of weeks without spending anything.
- Five or fewer. Not yet, and building now would be expensive. Fix the process by hand first — the discipline that makes automation work also makes the manual version better.
Want a second opinion on your answers?
Bring this to a free 45-minute call. We'll go through it against your actual numbers and tell you honestly whether it's worth building.