Free self-assessment
AI readiness checklist for small businesses: score yourself in five minutes
Twelve questions across four pillars, each scored 0, 1 or 2. No email required, no PDF to download. Score yourself here, read what the number means, then take the free review if you want the workflows named.
Is my business ready for AI?
You are ready when you have repeatable processes, records in a system, a named owner, and one clear first task with a measurable outcome.
Readiness has very little to do with technology and almost everything to do with whether the business knows what it does and where the hours go. A five-person roofing company with quotes in a job system, an office manager who owns the admin and a clear first task (follow up every quote) is more ready than a fifty-person firm with an IT budget and no idea which tasks repeat.
The checklist below breaks that into twelve items you can score honestly in five minutes. The longer explanation of what an assessment measures is in AI readiness assessment for small business.
The checklist
Twelve items, four pillars, scored 0 to 2
Pick the column that is closest to the truth for each row. Your total appears below the table. Nothing is sent anywhere; the count runs in your browser.
| Item | 0 | 1 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processes | |||
| Your main workflows (enquiry to invoice) are written down or could be in an afternoon | |||
| You can name the three admin tasks that eat the most hours each week | |||
| Those tasks happen the same way each time | |||
| Data and tools | |||
| Customer, job and invoice records live in a system, not only in email or paper | |||
| Those systems can be connected to (they have an export, an API or integrations) | |||
| Business accounts are used for email, files and any AI tools already in use | |||
| People | |||
| One named person owns the admin process day to day | |||
| The owner has an hour a week for the first month to review what the workflow produces | |||
| The team would use a tool that removes a chore rather than work around it | |||
| A first use case | |||
| You can describe one task in a sentence: what comes in, what should go out | |||
| That task has a measurable outcome (hours, response time, quotes followed up) | |||
| A person will check the output before it reaches a customer or a file | |||
Your score
0 / 24
Answer all twelve rows to see your band.
0 of 12 answered
Thresholds
- 18 to 24Ready for a pilot. Pick the first use case and run it beside the current process for a month.
- 10 to 17Prepare first. Close the gaps in the pillars where you scored 0 or 1, usually records and a named owner, then pilot.
- Under 10Fix foundations first. Get records into a system and write the main processes down before spending anything on AI.
These are our own working thresholds, drawn from review calls with owner-managed businesses. They are a guide, not an industry standard.
What to do with your score
18 or more. You are ready to pilot. The free AI Readiness Review is the next step: six questions, about three minutes, and an instant report naming the two or three highest-impact workflows for your industry with the estimated hours per week behind them. Ger follows up personally the same working day.
10 to 17. Take the review anyway. The report will tell you which workflow matters most for your kind of business, and that tells you which gap to close first. Most businesses in this band need one system tidied and one person named, not a transformation programme.
Under 10. Do not buy AI yet. Get customer, job and invoice records into a system, write down the three admin tasks that eat the most hours, and re-score in a quarter. How an engagement works once you are ready is explained on AI consulting for small business.
What are the five pillars of AI readiness?
There is no single standard, but the big published frameworks share five pillars: strategy, data, technology or infrastructure, people and skills, and governance.
Five is a convenient number, not an official one. The Cisco AI Readiness Index assessment scores six pillars: strategy, infrastructure, data, governance, talent and culture. Microsoft's AI Readiness Assessment uses seven: business strategy, AI governance and security, data foundations, AI strategy and experience, organisation and culture, infrastructure for AI, and model management. Split talent from culture, or model management from infrastructure, and you get six or seven; fold them together and you get the five above.
This checklist uses four pillars because it is written for a business of 5 to 50 staff, not an enterprise IT department. The five common pillars map onto it like this:
- ·Strategy is the first use case pillar. In a small business, strategy is one task with a measurable outcome, not a roadmap.
- ·Data is the data and tools pillar: customer, job and invoice records held in a system rather than in email or memory.
- ·Technology or infrastructure is also in data and tools: whether your systems can be connected. For a small business, the infrastructure is the software it already pays for.
- ·People and skills is the people pillar: a named owner for the admin, an hour a week from the owner, and a team willing to use the tool.
- ·Governance is spread across two rows: business accounts rather than personal ones, and a person checking the output before it reaches a customer or a file.
The one pillar here that neither framework lists on its own is processes. In an owner-managed business, a workflow that lives only in someone's head is usually the first thing that stops AI working, so it gets its own three rows.
Where the pillars come from
The four pillars are the same four things the AI Readiness Review's six questions probe: how the work flows, where the records live, who owns the admin, and whether there is one task with hours attached. The review adds the industry layer and produces the report; this page lets you see the shape of the answer before you fill anything in.
Take two examples of what can be automated at Shamrock Electrical, the business I run for its owner: invoice chasing and the weekly management report. Both score 2 on the first use case pillar: one sentence each, a measurable outcome, and a person checking the output. That is what makes a workflow a good first candidate.
Common questions
What score means my business is ready for AI?
On this checklist, 18 or more out of 24 means you are ready to run a first pilot workflow now. These are our own working thresholds from review calls, not an industry standard.
What if I score under 10?
Fix the foundations first: get customer and job records into a system and name the admin tasks that eat the hours. The free review still helps because the report tells you which foundation matters most for your industry.
Is this checklist the same as the AI Readiness Review?
No. The checklist is a self-score across four pillars; the review is six questions that produce an industry-specific report naming your highest-impact workflows, followed by a personal call from Ger. Most people do the checklist first and the review second.
Do I need a technical person to be AI ready?
No. The pillars that matter most are documented processes, records in a system and a named owner. We build and maintain the workflows; your team only needs to use what they produce.
How often should I re-score?
Every quarter, or after any change to your systems or team. Most businesses move from prepare first to pilot-ready within one quarter once the records are in a system and a first use case is written down.
Got your score? Get the workflows named
The free AI Readiness Review takes about three minutes and returns an industry-specific report naming your two or three highest-impact workflows. No card, no obligation.
Take the free AI Readiness Review