AI Strategy & Advisory
Every organisation we meet has more AI ideas than capacity. The problem is rarely imagination; it is deciding which three things to do this year, in what order, and what has to be true for each of them to work.
Our advisory work is deliberately short and decision-oriented. We interview the people who own the processes, examine the systems that hold the data, and come back with a prioritised portfolio, an honest feasibility read on each item, and a roadmap that accounts for procurement cycles, privacy review and change management — not just engineering effort.
Platforms we typically deliver this on
Scope of the service
AI opportunity assessment
Structured discovery across business units to surface candidate use cases, sized by value, feasibility, data readiness and risk exposure.
Use-case prioritisation and business case
A scored portfolio with cost-to-build, cost-to-run, expected benefit and the assumptions each estimate depends on — written so it survives a finance review.
Target architecture and build-vs-buy
Where to use a commercial platform, where to build, and where to do neither. Includes model selection, hosting and data residency options.
Operating model design
Who owns AI systems once they are live: roles, review boards, intake process, and how AI work is funded year to year.
Policy and governance foundations
Acceptable-use policy, model risk framework, disclosure standards and the approval path for new AI systems.
Roadmap and investment plan
A phased 12–24 month plan with decision gates, resourcing profile and budget envelope by phase.
Where this is used
Representative engagements, described at the level our clients permit. Sector and shape are accurate; identifying detail is withheld.
Setting AI direction for a provincial agency
A ministry with sixteen candidate AI projects and no way to compare them. We ran a six-week assessment across service delivery, back office and case management, scored each project against benefit, data readiness and privacy exposure, and produced a three-year sequenced plan.
Outcome — A defensible portfolio that survived internal privacy review and treasury board scrutiny.
Deciding where AI belongs in student services
A university wanted AI in admissions, advising and IT support at once. We mapped each against student-record access rules and found only two were viable in year one — and one of them delivered most of the benefit.
Outcome — Avoided two builds that would have failed privacy review after the money was spent.
Building the AI business case for an investment committee
An advisory firm needed a costed AI plan its investment committee would approve. We built bottom-up cost models covering build, inference, monitoring and staffing, with sensitivity analysis on volume assumptions.
Outcome — Approved funding, with the run-cost line item understood up front rather than discovered later.
Before you get in touch
How long does an AI strategy engagement take?
Most run four to eight weeks depending on the number of business units involved. We deliberately keep them short — a strategy that takes six months is out of date before it is signed.
Do we need our data in order before we start?
No. Assessing the state of your data is part of the work. What we produce will tell you exactly which data problems have to be solved before which use cases become viable.
Will you recommend building something you then sell us?
Our assessment reports name the option we think is cheapest for you, including buying a product or doing nothing. Several of our assessments have concluded that the client should not build.
Often engaged alongside this
AI Readiness Assessment
A fixed-fee assessment with a fixed deliverable. You get a data inventory, a scored use-case shortlist, a governance gap analysis and a costed roadmap. No open-ended discovery.
Read moreAICTO & Chief AI Officer Advisory
Fractional CTO and Chief AI Officer support for organisations making decisions that outlast the people making them.
Read moreAIAI Governance & Responsible AI
Frameworks, controls and evidence built for organisations that have to explain their AI systems to a regulator, an auditor, a board or the public.
Read moreStart with three weeks and a straight answer
The AI Readiness Assessment is fixed in scope, fixed in price and produces four deliverables you own — whether or not you continue with us.