AI Opportunity Assessment
Most companies do not have an AI problem. They have a "which one first" problem. An assessment finds every place AI would genuinely pay in your business, scores them against each other, and tells you which one to build first and why.
What an AI opportunity assessment actually is
An AI opportunity assessment is a structured look at how your organization really works, done to find the specific places where AI would save real hours or make real money, and to rank those places so you know where to start.
It starts from the work, not from the technology. We sit with the people who do the job and watch where the time goes: the report someone rebuilds every Monday, the invoices keyed in by hand, the forty almost-identical quote letters, the knowledge that lives in one person's head and retires when they do.
It ends with a short list. Each item is written up with the workflow it touches, the hours or dollars at stake, the data it depends on, what it would take to build, and a score. Then a plain recommendation: build this one first, here is why, here is roughly what it costs.
The thing you are buying is a decision you can defend, to your board, your CFO, and the people whose jobs change. Not a slide deck about artificial intelligence.
Four things, and they are yours
Everything produced during the assessment belongs to you at the end of it, whether or not you build anything with us.
A scored opportunity map
Every opportunity we found, written up in plain language with the workflow it touches, the time or cost at stake, the data it needs, and a score on six dimensions. Ranked against each other, not just listed.
A first-build recommendation
One project named, with the reasoning shown. What it does, what it would take, roughly what it costs, and what has to be true for it to work. Specific enough to hand to any developer, including one who is not us.
The honest no-list
The ideas that came up and should not be built yet, and the reason each one fails: data is not there, the risk is wrong, the change load lands on a team already at capacity. Knowing what to skip saves more money than knowing what to start.
Materials for the room
The version you show your board or your executive team. Same findings, written to be read by people who were not in the interviews and do not want the technical detail.
Fixed scope, fixed fee, quoted before we start. No commitment past the assessment itself.
How it runs
Short on purpose. An assessment that takes a quarter costs more than the first project it recommends.
Sit with the work
Interviews across two lanes: the internal and operational side, and the customer-facing or regulated side. We talk to the people doing the job and the leader who can decide, because an assessment that only hears from executives produces opportunities that do not survive contact with the actual workflow.
Week 1Score and test
Every candidate gets scored on the six dimensions below. Where something looks promising and cheap to check, we check it against your real data rather than guessing. Feasibility claims that were never tested are how AI projects die in month four.
Week 2Bring it back
We walk your leadership team through the map together, argue about the ranking in the room, and leave with an agreed first project. You get the written map, the first-build scope, and the board-ready version.
Week 3Six dimensions, every opportunity
The score is what makes the ranking arguable instead of a matter of taste. If you disagree with a number, you can point at which one and say why.
| Dimension | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Staff-time impact | How many hours a week does this give back, and to whom? Hours given back to a role you are struggling to hire for are worth more than hours given back generally. |
| Data readiness | Does the data this needs already exist, in a form a system can read? This is the single most common reason a good idea is not a first project. |
| Technical feasibility | Can this be built with what exists today, at a cost that makes sense against the hours it saves? Scored by the people who would build it. |
| Risk and compliance | What happens when it is wrong? A workflow where a mistake is caught in the next step scores very differently from one where a mistake reaches a customer or a regulator. |
| Change load | How much has to change for the people who do this work every day? AI projects fail on adoption more often than on technology. |
| Measurability | Will you be able to tell whether it worked? If there is no number that moves, the project cannot be defended at renewal time. |
A high impact score with a low data-readiness score is not a first project, and the map says so plainly rather than burying it.
What an assessment turned into
A Wisconsin commercial printer came to us with a workforce problem, not an AI one.
Long-tenured staff were approaching retirement, with decades of operational knowledge held in people's heads and nothing written down. We ran the assessment, mapped which workflows were actually at risk, and scored them.
It came back with four projects worth doing: invoice generation automation, AP invoice OCR, a smart accounting workflow, and print operations intelligence. All four are now underway. The value of the assessment was not finding four ideas. It was knowing the order, and knowing which other ideas from the same conversations were not worth funding.
What people ask before they book one
What does it cost, and how long does it take?
Three weeks, fixed scope and fixed fee, quoted before the work starts so the price does not move as the work goes on. There is no commitment past the assessment itself. If you want the first project built, you can engage us to build it, hand the map to your own team, or take it to another vendor. It is your document.
We already know what we want to build. Is this worth it?
Sometimes not, and we will tell you so on the call rather than selling you one. If you have a clearly defined workflow, a known data source, and someone inside who owns it, going straight to a scoped build is usually the better use of the money. The assessment earns its fee when there are several candidates and no agreed way to choose between them, or when the idea leadership named first turns out not to be the best one. That happens more often than you would expect.
Who needs to be involved from our side?
The people who do the work, and the leader who can decide. Expect a handful of interviews of about an hour each, and a working session at the end. We do not need a project manager assigned to us, and we do not need your team to prepare anything in advance.
Do you only assess, or do you also build?
Both, and that is deliberate. The same people who run the assessment ship production systems, which is why the estimates in the map reflect what is actually buildable rather than what sounds good in a slide. When we build for you, you own the code.
How is this different from an AI readiness assessment?
A readiness assessment scores your organization: your data maturity, your governance, your skills. Useful, and not what this is. An opportunity assessment scores the work itself and comes back with named projects you could fund on Monday. If you need both, the readiness picture falls out of the opportunity work anyway, because you cannot score data readiness per workflow without learning the state of your data.
Do you work outside Wisconsin?
Yes. We are based in Madison and a good share of our work is with Wisconsin organizations, but we run assessments for clients across the country. Interviews are done remotely unless being on site genuinely helps, and for operational and manufacturing work it often does.
What the map tends to surface in your world
Each page breaks down the two-lane opportunity map, internal and operational versus customer-facing or regulated, with real examples.
- Featured by Apple in Best New Apps & Updates (LilSense)
- Serving collegiate and professional programs, including an NCAA national championship team
- Founded Wisconsin's longest-running AI practitioner community (meeting weekly since 2024)
- Co-hosts the AI Leadership Breakfast Forum with Steve Cretney (EVP, Colony Brands)
Find out what is actually worth building
Start with a 30-minute conversation. We will tell you honestly whether you need an assessment or should skip straight to the build.
Book a Call