What an AI readiness audit is
An AI readiness audit is a short, structured look at your business that answers one question: where would AI actually pay for itself here? Not in general, not in a conference keynote, but in your workflows, with your data, at your volumes.
The output is a document you can act on: a shortlist of AI opportunities scored by value and risk, what each would roughly cost to build and to run, what your data can and cannot support today, and a recommended first project with a plan. Done properly, it is useful even if you never hire the firm that wrote it.
What a good audit contains
- A map of candidate workflows. Interviews with the people doing the work, because the best automation targets are visible from the inside: the ticket queue, the document pile, the weekly spreadsheet ritual.
- A data reality check. AI runs on your data, and most companies discover theirs is scattered, inconsistent or locked in a tool with no export. Knowing this first changes which project should go first.
- Three to five scored opportunities. Each with the value at stake, the risk if the AI is wrong, the build effort and the monthly running cost, so the comparison is numbers against numbers.
- A build-or-buy call for each. Sometimes the right answer is an off-the-shelf tool, and the audit should say so in writing.
- A recommended first project with a plan. Small enough to ship in weeks, measurable enough to prove itself, and connected to a real cost or revenue line.
Who actually needs one
An audit earns its fee when several of these are true: you have repetitive knowledge work at volume (support, documents, data entry, research), you suspect AI could help but disagree internally about where to start, your data lives in several systems, or a failed first AI project would sour the whole company on the idea.
You do not need one if you already know your first project and it is small. If the obvious candidate is "answer support tickets from our help articles", skip the audit and prototype it; two weeks of prototype beats two weeks of report when the target is already clear. We tell people this on calls regularly.
Why audits fail
The bad version of this product is a generic maturity assessment: forty pages, a spider chart, and no number your finance team can check. If the deliverable does not name specific workflows, specific costs and a specific first project, it is a brochure. Ask to see a sample before you pay anyone, including us.
What ours looks like
The AppWizards AI Readiness Audit takes two weeks at a fixed price. Week one is interviews and data review; week two is scoring, costing and the plan. You get the document, the scoring model and a working session to walk your team through it. It is yours to keep and act on, with us or without us, and the details are on our AI services page.