AI Readiness Review

AI ambition has outrun the organisation's knowledge of itself. There are pilots in flight and a strategy with AI on every page, but no one can say with confidence what data the organisation actually holds, who governs it, which decisions are already being shaped by models, or what would happen if a regulator asked.

The executive team does not need more ambition. It needs an accurate position.

A fixed-scope review over four to six weeks. Structured conversations with the executive team and with the people who actually run the data. A review of the estate as it is — data, governance, capability, supplier commitments, regulatory exposure — not as the strategy assumes it to be. Findings are tested with the sponsor before they are written down, so nothing in the final assessment arrives as a surprise.

A written assessment of where the organisation stands, in language an executive team and a board can both read. A sequenced set of decisions — what to do first, what depends on what, what not to do yet. A plain statement of the real risk exposure. This is not a transformation roadmap. It is a decision document the executive team can act on the week it arrives.

The AI conversation moves from opinion to position. The executive team can say what it is doing, in what order, and why — and can show the reasoning to the board, a regulator, or an investor without preparing a defence first.

Currently architecting an AI and data programme for UK policing custody data — one of the most demanding accountability environments in which AI decisions are made. Thirty-seven years in technology across 20+ sectors, from computer operator to Group CTO. Author of three books on technology, judgement, and the human consequence of systems.