Is there a free EU-funded AI readiness assessment?

What is the EDIH network?

European Digital Innovation Hubs help businesses and public organisations with digital challenges through expertise, training and testing. “Test before invest” describes trying a technology before committing to an investment; the actual service must be agreed with the hub.

On 8 October 2025, the Commission announced selection of 83 hubs after a call with a €342 million budget, jointly funded under DIGITAL 2025–2027 and other contributors. That was funding context for the network, not an entitlement for an individual company.

Start with the official catalogue and the hub’s own service description. Check whether its sector, technology and geographic coverage fit your question. A network announcement is not the same thing as a confirmed place, appointment or funded service for your business.

What can you use without buying a private assessment?

The network presents its Digital Maturity Assessment tool as free. Open DMAT provides a company self-assessment; it uses the same questions as the hub tool but gives individual results without a comparison with other companies.

Ask a relevant hub what comes next for your particular case. A consultation, training activity or technical trial may have different access conditions from an open questionnaire. Obtain the terms for the specific service, rather than extending the word “free” to the whole programme.

Before an appointment, write down the process you want help with, the systems involved and the decision you need to make. Ask what result you will receive, who will explain it and whether any follow-up work has a separate cost. This makes a public-service option easier to compare with a paid proposal.

Is the AI Act Service Desk the same assessment?

The Commission also provides an AI Act Service Desk and information platform with a Compliance Checker. This is a separate route for questions about the regulation, rather than the same exercise as choosing and measuring an operational task.

Match the route to the question. Understanding a regulatory role, judging digital maturity and deciding which repeated task to change are different needs. One organisation may help with more than one, but check its actual offer instead of assuming a single tool answers all of them.

How should you compare a hub service with an AI Opportunity Map?

Compare actual outputs. Ask whether the hub will provide a maturity result, a discussion of opportunities, technical testing, a task list or another defined deliverable. Do not assume all hubs stop at generic advice or that a paid service is automatically the necessary next step.

ErgoStrat’s AI Opportunity Map examines work across the website, email, documents, orders and reports. It returns named tasks ordered by the hours they cost today, with a measured baseline for the traced task. That is our supplied service scope, not a claim that no public service can provide specific recommendations.

• Check the question the service will answer and the evidence it will use.
• Ask what written output you receive and what its limits are.
• Confirm eligibility, availability and any cost before starting.
• Identify who will act on the result and what requires a separate proposal.

If a hub has already produced the task list you need, use it when deciding whether further work adds value. If a general assessment leaves the first task unclear, compare a more focused diagnostic against that remaining question. You do not have to buy the same answer twice.

Questions

Sources

• European Commission: EDIH network
• EDIH Network: free assessment tool
• Open DMAT: self-assessment and result limits
• Official EDIH catalogue
• Commission: October 2025 funding announcement
• Commission: AI Act Service Desk

Related reading

• What frameworks do readiness assessments use?
• What does implementing AI cost?