Know exactly where AI pays back, before you spend
A short, evidence-led engagement that maps where AI will reduce cost or recover time in your business, ranks the options by return and risk, and gives you a sequenced plan you can budget against.
- Right for you if
- You know AI matters but every vendor pitch sounds the same.
- Outcome
- A ranked, costed plan you can take to your board.
- Timeline
- 2–3 weeks.
- Pricing
- Fixed fee, scoped to your systems and volumes after a discovery call.
Why this keeps going wrong
AI decisions get made on the wrong criteria: whoever demoed most convincingly, whatever a competitor announced, whichever tool someone already pays for.
The fix is not complicated. Apply the same discipline you would apply to any other capital decision. Know the baseline, compare options on one scale, and be explicit about what you will not do this year.
Signs this is you
- You have been asked for an AI strategy and do not know where to start.
- You are evaluating vendors with no way to compare their claims.
- A pilot has stalled and nobody can say why, or what it returned.
- Different teams are buying different tools independently.
- You suspect you already spend on AI but cannot total it.
What happens, week by week.
- Week 1
Find out what is actually happening
Short interviews across functions, kept non-punitive so people tell you which tools they really use.
You get: A current-state map: tools in use, owners, data touched, spend to date.
- Weeks 1–2
Measure the processes, not the technology
Volume, time and cost baselines for the processes that matter.
You get: A baseline you can measure future change against.
- Week 2
Score every opportunity on the same scale
Time or cost recovered, effort, dependency risk and governance risk.
You get: A ranked opportunity register with the scoring shown, not hidden.
- Week 3
Sequence it, cost it, and say what to avoid
A phased plan with indicative cost, and an explicit "not this year" list.
You get: A sequenced roadmap and a six-page board summary.
What you walk away with.
Current-state assessment
What is in use, by whom, touching which data, at what cost.
Opportunity register
Every candidate use case, scored and ranked.
Sequenced roadmap
Phases, dependencies, indicative budget and owners.
Board-ready summary
Six pages in commercial language, not a technical specification.
Included
- Interviews across functions
- Discovery of unsanctioned AI tool use
- Baseline measurement
- Scoring and ranking
- Indicative cost and effort per phase
- A board presentation with live Q&A
Not included
- Building anything
- Vendor procurement or contract negotiation
- A full data warehouse or architecture review
- Change-management delivery (we flag it, we do not run it)
How you'll know it worked.
- AI tools discovered vs. previously known
- Baseline hours and cost per process
- Top three use cases costed to ±30%
- A decision made by leadership. A document alone counts as failure.
Where this fits best.
From our insights.
Why AI pilots stall: an operational post-mortem
Most AI pilots do not fail. They fade. Two weeks of enthusiasm, then nothing. The reasons are almost always operational, and almost always predictable.
Onshore, DIFC or ADGM: which AI rules actually apply to you
Where your company is registered decides which data protection regime you answer to. Here is a plain-language map.
Questions we hear a lot
Is three weeks really enough?
For most businesses, yes. A longer engagement produces a thicker document, not a better decision.
What if the answer is that we should not invest yet?
The report says so. It happens in a minority of engagements, usually because the data or process is not ready.
Do we need our data ready first?
No. Assessing it is part of the work.
Who needs to be involved from our side?
A sponsor with authority, and six to ten hours of people's time in total.
Will you then quote to build what you recommended?
If you want us to. You are free to take the plan elsewhere.
Start with a conversation, not a proposal.
Thirty minutes with someone who has built this before. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so and point you to who is.