The AI Readiness Audit: 5 Questions Before You Invest

Before you sign anything, answer these honestly:

1. What specific outcome are we chasing? "Be more efficient" is not an outcome.
2. Where is the data, and is it usable? AI without clean, accessible data is theater.
3. Who owns the workflow today? If no one owns it, no one will own the AI version.
4. What happens when it's wrong? Every AI output needs a human checkpoint and a fallback.
5. How will we know it worked? Define the metric before you deploy, not after.

If three of these are fuzzy, your first investment should be clarity — not software.