Know which AI ideas deserve your money before you spend it.
In two weeks and five interviews with your people, we score how ready your company is, put a written verdict on every opportunity on the table, and hand you a 90-day plan with names on it. From $5,000, and the report can say “don’t.”
- Price
- from $5,000
- Length
- Two weeks (10 business days)
- Paid by
- Invoice, upfront
Who it’s for
You own or lead a company between about $1M and $100M in revenue. You have AI ideas, vendors pitching, maybe a budget line, and no independent way to choose. You’ve probably had three vendor conversations that each recommended the vendor.
Not for: companies that already know the one thing they want built (see Fractional CAIO) or that want staff training only (see the cohorts).
What you’ll have at the end
- A written verdict on every idea we find. Proceed, run a limited experiment, proceed after prerequisites, use a conventional fix, defer, refer to a specialist, or do not proceed. Roughly a third of ideas end at “conventional fix” or “defer.”
- Your readiness, scored on evidence. Seven areas, an EdgeScore and a stage, and every score tied to evidence we can show you.
- The top three opportunities, with ROI ranges. Each worked through with a directional range you can put in front of your partners.
- A 90-day plan with a named owner on your team for each item.
- A 12 to 16 page report and a 60-minute readout with your leadership. You can forward the report unchanged.
- An inventory of your systems and the AI tools already in use, including the ones nobody sanctioned.
What it asks of you
About 20 minutes for the intake. An org chart and a list of your software, as they are. Five people for an hour each: you, operations, finance, your most technical person, and someone who does the work every day. One leadership hour for the readout.
How the two weeks run
- Before day 1
Order form, invoice, the 20-minute intake, and all five interviews plus the readout booked
- Day 1
45-minute kickoff: the decision you need to make, the two or three parts of the business that matter
- Days 2–4
Interviews, 45 to 60 minutes each, recorded
- Days 5–9
Scoring, verdicts, the plan, the report
- Day 10
60-minute readout with your leadership. The report arrives within two hours after the call
- Days 14, 45
A 15-minute follow-up call, then a check-in on your first plan item
What it costs
From $5,000, invoiced upfront. The exact fee depends on company size; we set it on the scoping call and it doesn’t move afterward. If you start any EdgeTeam program within 60 days of the readout, the assessment fee credits toward it. Nothing in the report depends on you choosing one; the plan is written for your team to execute without us.
What it is not
It’s a business and technical readiness diagnostic, and the report says on page one that it is not a legal opinion, a privacy impact assessment, a security audit, or a compliance certification. Nothing gets implemented in the two weeks. Deeper work is available separately: an all-staff survey, ROI models beyond the top three, a drafted AI policy, a leadership prioritization workshop.
How we score
We score seven areas: business direction, use-case discipline, workflow fit, people and change capacity, data, technology, and governance. Self-reported claims can’t score above the midpoint. Anything higher needs a document, an observation, or data we have seen. The verdict list above is the same one we’d apply to our own ideas. Ask for the sample report and readout deck (a fictional company, scored the way we’d score yours) and we’ll send them.
| Domain | Weight | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Business direction and sponsorship | 15% | Leadership alignment · Business-goal linkage · Ownership and decision rights · Investment discipline |
| 2. Use-case and value discipline | 15% | Use-case pipeline · Value measurement · Problem-first framing · Success and stop criteria |
| 3. Workflow and operating fit | 15% | Process documentation · Workflow integration · Workflow evidence · Review points and sustainability |
| 4. People and change capacity | 15% | AI literacy · Adoption breadth and depth · Champions and learning culture · Change readiness and trust |
| 5. Data readiness | 15% | Accessibility · Quality and trust · Ownership and definitions · AI-usability |
| 6. Technology and integration readiness | 10% | Core systems fitness · Integration and automation infrastructure · Sanctioned AI tooling · Agentic readiness |
| 7. Governance, risk, privacy, and security | 15% | Policy and acceptable use · Data protection in AI use · Human oversight and accountability · Regulatory and insurance readiness |
Every opportunity gets one of seven verdicts
- Proceed to design
- Run a limited experiment
- Proceed after prerequisites
- Use a conventional fix
- Defer
- Refer to a specialist
- Do not proceed
What the scorecard looks like
From the sample report, written for Prairie Bluff Insurance Group: a fictional 60-person independent insurance agency with three offices in the upper Midwest. Every name and number in it is invented.
41EdgeScore · Experimenting
EdgeScore = 0.75 × the weighted average of the seven domains + 0.25 × the weakest domain (Governance in this sample). The weakest link counts extra.
Questions owners ask on the scoping call
Can you just tell us what to build?
Yes, and also what not to build. The no-list is half the value.
What will I be able to say to my partners afterward?
Which three things you’re doing, which you’re not, why, roughly what each costs, and who owns it. That’s the readout.
We’re small. Is this too much for us?
Under about 15 people, usually yes. Start with a cohort or EdgeCore Pro and come back when there’s more to assess.
Why does the price vary?
A 20-person company and a 200-person company with three divisions are different amounts of work. The floor is $5,000, the fee is fixed before we start, and it never changes mid-engagement.
Not quite right? The other programs
Each program is built for one situation. Compare all six.
AI Audit & Assessment
from $5,000 · updated