AI Readiness Assessment: What It Is and Why You Need One
Stop Buying Tools Before You Map Workflows
The most expensive mistake in lending AI isn't choosing the wrong vendor. It's automating the wrong process.
We see it constantly: a firm spends six figures on an AI platform, deploys it against a workflow that was broken to begin with, and ends up with faster broken processes. The tool works. The ROI doesn't.
What a Readiness Assessment Delivers
A readiness assessment is a structured 2-week diagnostic that answers three questions:
- Where is AI ready to deploy today? Which workflows are high-volume, rule-based, and data-rich enough for immediate automation?
- Where do you need to fix the process first? Which workflows need redesign before automation makes sense?
- What's the expected ROI? Hard numbers — not "we'll be more efficient" but "this will save $X per quarter."
The Five Artifacts
Every assessment delivers five concrete outputs:
- Workflow Heat Map — Visual map of every manual process, scored by automation readiness
- Quick Win List — The 3–5 workflows you can automate this quarter with proven AI
- Risk Register — What could go wrong, and how to mitigate it
- Budget & Timeline — Realistic costs and milestones for each initiative
- Go / No-Go Recommendation — An honest assessment of whether AI is right for your operation today
Who Should Get One
If you answer "yes" to any of these, a readiness assessment will save you time and money:
- You're considering AI but don't know where to start
- You've bought AI tools that didn't deliver expected ROI
- Your operations team is growing faster than your deal flow
- You're spending more than $100K/year on outsourced back-office work
The Cost of Skipping It
Without a readiness assessment, you're guessing. And in our experience, firms that guess wrong spend 3–5x more fixing the mistake than the assessment would have cost.
Two weeks. Five deliverables. A clear path forward — or an honest "not yet."