Business Strategy readiness for AI

What this pillar measures

How AI initiatives align with revenue, cost, customer, and risk outcomes.

Business Strategy is weighted at 15% of the overall AI Readiness score, which makes it the 1st heaviest of the nine pillars. 5 scored questions feed its maturity score, and 6 more inform other parts of your result. See how the weights combine.

What we ask

Every scored answer describes a recognizable state of the world rather than an agree/disagree rating. These are the questions behind this pillar.

1. For your AI projects, how often is there a named businessperson (not someone from IT) on the hook for the results?A business owner runs a budget or a team and answers for the outcome — e.g. the head of customer service, not the project's tech lead.
2. Which parts of the business actually use AI in their day-to-day work? Tick all that apply.Tick a team only where AI is part of how the work really gets done — not just talked about.Feeds capability breadth, not the score
3. In one sentence, where do you want AI to take your business?There are no wrong answers. We'll come back to this when we build your results.Open text — shapes your 90-day plan
4. In the last year, have you actually measured the return (money saved or made) on any AI project?Whether you actually checked the money saved or made — not just assumed there was some.
5. Is there a part of your business so large that even a small improvement (say 5%) would be worth tens of millions a year?This shows whether you already know where AI's biggest prize is — or whether you'd have to go find it.
6. How often do you go back and check whether your AI spending actually delivered what you expected?How often you check is the tell. Once a year tends to mean gut-feel; every quarter tends to mean disciplined.
7. A year from now, where do you want your AI to be?Be honest about your ambition — we measure the gap between where you are and where you want to be.Informs your aspiration gap, not the score
8. And three years from now?Your honest ambition for where AI should be in three years.Informs your aspiration gap, not the score
9. In the last year, has AI been put in front of your board or top leadership?Whether AI has reached your most senior decision-makers, and how seriously it was treated.
10. If your CEO asked tomorrow what your AI plans are worth in dollars, what would you say?The honest answer. There's no wrong answer here — some leaders genuinely don't know yet, and that itself is a finding.Open text — shapes your 90-day plan
11. Across these nine areas of AI readiness, pick the three that matter most to your plans for the next year.We use this to focus your 90-day plan. If everything matters, nothing does — pick three.Informs your aspiration gap, not the score

What each level looks like

Each answer maps to a maturity score from 0 to 4. Reading down a column shows what an organization at that level typically says.

What a strong score unlocks

A strong score here means AI spend is defended in budget reviews on the same terms as any other investment, with a sponsor, a target and a measure. That is the condition under which the other eight pillars are worth improving.

Other pillars

All nine pillars, their weights and the scoring math are on the methodology page.