AI Opportunity Map

What is an AI readiness assessment?

An AI readiness assessment examines whether a business can put AI to use before it pays for a build. Published frameworks differ in purpose, evidence and output; a score alone does not establish that a particular task will work.

In about ten working days we identify candidate tasks for an AI agent, which chooses actions within its tools and permissions. The map names tasks in order of today’s hours, with one task measured end to end.

Our AI Opportunity Map grades no maturity scale. It examines existing work and states in writing which daily tasks can be handed over.

Who is this for?

• For small and mid-sized businesses in any sector: we examine how work moves, not what you sell.
• AI is being talked about at your company, there may be one pilot, and nobody uses it every day.
• You want named tasks rather than a score from zero to one hundred.
• You have about three and a half hours for three conversations, rather than weeks for a questionnaire and study.
• You are considering paying for a build and want to know first what is worth it and what is not.

What do we look at?

Five areas. The answers come from the conversations, not from a form.

• The website: where an enquiry comes in and how long it waits.
• Email: which messages are written the same way every week.
• The documents: what is copied from one place to another.
• The orders: what is entered by hand and where it waits.
• The reports: what is assembled on Friday afternoon.

Across five areas: where does work go, is the data usable, who owns a wrong result, and what happens on failure? These four practical questions do not reproduce or formally equate the Microsoft, Gartner or Google Cloud models.

How does the work run?

1. 01
   Interview, ninety minutes.You walk us through a normal week. We write down the tasks that repeat, the ones people dread, and the handoffs where work sits waiting.
2. 02
   Trace, sixty minutes.One real task, request to completion, on a shared screen. We measure minutes, hand-offs and waiting: the baseline for later changes.
3. 03
   Analysis, without your time.Against each task: can an agent do this today, does it need data you do not have yet, or is it a person's job for good reasons. We order the tasks by the hours they cost you today.
4. 04
   Handover, forty-five minutes.We go through the map together: the agents worth building first, in order, with the reason each one is there. For a week afterwards we answer questions by email.

What do you get?

A written AI Opportunity Map: tasks ordered by today’s hours; the traced task’s measured baseline; for the first three tasks, the proposed tool, requirements, owner and build-effort range in hours; what should stay with a person and why. Every finding states its next step and effort.

The map stays current for six months.

How much does it cost?

EUR 1,500, a fixed final price, paid before we start. All conversations are included. The fee is independent of any later build and is not deducted from it. If nothing is worth building, the map says so.

How long does it take?

About ten working days from payment to the written map. Your time: about three and a half hours for interview, trace and handover.

What are the five levels, and which one matters?

These five descriptions distinguish discussing AI from relying on it daily. They are illustrative, not a validated score or reproduction of a licensed Gartner method. They do not determine your map’s result.

1. 01
   Awareness.The business is talking about AI. Nothing is deployed.
2. 02
   Active.Pilots are running. People are experimenting, often without a shared plan.
3. 03
   Operational.At least one real workflow runs on it in production, every day.
4. 04
   Systemic.AI is used in a novel way that disrupts the business model.
5. 05
   Transformational.The business is built around it rather than fitted with it.

Moving from a pilot to a daily process needs ownership, checks and a way to handle failures. A working demonstration alone does not establish that a process can run reliably in production.

What can the assessment not tell you?

• Whether a specific task will work. That needs a build and a test against real work.
• The exact price of a build. For the first three tasks the map gives the effort as a range of hours. Exact scope comes after you pick a task, not before.
• Undocumented work. A team’s useful workaround often goes unwritten. A questionnaire does not reveal it; conversation and tracing sometimes do.
• How ready your team is in terms of skills. We do not test people. We look at who does each task today and who will own the agent once it is built.
• Whether you comply with the EU AI Act or GDPR. The map is not a legal check. AI Act obligations are a separate service, EU AI Act Readiness.

What happens next?

No obligation: the map is yours. Continue with the first task, one process at a time. If the website is the biggest problem, the map recommends a Website Review.

Articles

• How much does AI consulting cost for a small business?Compare hourly advice, a defined assessment and implementation as different purchases. Named provider examples are not a European market average or an ErgoStrat implementation quote.
• How much does AI implementation cost after the assessment?Separate the initial build, data and access work, recurring tools and models, and the people who check the result. An actual build quote follows the choice and scope of a task.
• Is there an AI readiness checklist you can use yourself?Free checklists can help prepare questions about work, data, ownership and testing. Check the publisher, version and scope; a completed checklist is not proof of production readiness.
• Is your data good enough for AI?Check data quality, provenance, labels, access, protection and permitted use for the intended task. Consent is not the only possible legal basis for personal-data processing; the applicable basis needs its own check.
• Is there a free EU-funded AI readiness assessment?The EDIH network offers an open digital-maturity self-assessment. Hub-specific AI support, pricing or subsidy depends on the service and eligibility; funding the network does not automatically make every service free to every business.
• Can you trust free online AI readiness tests?Self-ratings can start a conversation, but check the questions and evidence behind the result. Test a concrete task before treating a readiness score as an investment decision.
• What frameworks do AI readiness assessments use?Compare each framework’s publisher, version, purpose, required evidence and output. Similar themes do not make models identical or show that most providers copy the same model.
• What can an AI agent actually do for a business today?Look at a defined task, the connected tools, the permissions and how a person checks the result. A published example does not establish that the same agent will work in your business.
• Where should a small business start with AI?Start with the business problem, choose a narrow task and define one useful measure. A pilot needs an owner and a test before you expand it.
• Why do AI pilots fail to reach production?A pilot can demonstrate a task without proving reliable daily operation or financial return. Check data, ownership, failure handling and the measured result; do not treat a headline failure rate as the cause of your own case.

Questions