What does an AI readiness assessment actually include?

An AI assessment should tell you where AI would give your business time back, what each change is worth, which tool does it, what that tool costs, and what to do first. If it cannot answer those five things for your business specifically, it is a brochure. Here is what a good one covers, and how Simplish AI runs its own.

Over my twenty years working with owners, I've seen the same thing repeatedly: the "AI problem" is rarely about technology. It's almost always a process that only exists in one person's head. Until you get that process out and onto paper, you can't automate it. You just create faster chaos.

What is an AI readiness assessment for?

An AI readiness assessment is a structured look at how work actually gets done in your business, so you can decide where AI is worth using and where it is not. For an owner led team of three to twelve people, the output should be a short, costed list of changes you could start next week, not a strategy document.

Most small businesses are already ready enough. The real question is which repetitive jobs are worth changing, and in what order.

What should a good assessment cover?

A good assessment covers six things: your tasks, the cost of each, a priority order, named tools with real prices, your existing software, and a plan.

Discovery of tasks, frequency, time and tools

It should start with a detailed conversation about your week, not a questionnaire about your "AI maturity". For each repetitive task it captures what the task is, how often it happens, how long it takes, who does it, and which tools are involved.

Costed opportunities

Every opportunity should be valued in hours and pounds, using your own numbers. A task that takes your office manager two hours a week is 96 hours a year across 48 working weeks, and at £15 an hour, the cost of delegating it, that is £1,440 a year, with every assumption printed on the page.

Prioritisation on effort against impact

Each opportunity should be ranked on the effort it takes against the time it returns. Low effort, high impact goes first. A fix that takes weeks to build and returns twenty minutes a week may never be worth doing, and the report should say so.

Named tools, monthly cost and setup time

Every recommendation should name the tool, its monthly cost and its setup time. "Use AI to streamline your invoicing" is not a recommendation. "Switch on automatic payment reminders in the accounting software you already pay for, no extra cost, about an hour to set up" is.

Existing software first

Before suggesting any new subscription, a good assessment checks what your current tools can already do. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace now include AI features in their business plans. Where customer or staff details would pass through a tool, the plan should also note it, because UK GDPR still applies.

An implementation plan

The assessment should end with what happens next, in order, and who does it. A list without a plan tends to sit in an inbox.

What should you be wary of?

Be wary of any assessment that inflates the value, stays generic, or never names a tool.

Pounds valued at your own charge out rate. Take an owner who bills £120 an hour and spends five hours a week on admin. At the charge out rate, those hours look like £28,800 a year. At £15, what it would cost to delegate the work, they are worth £3,600. The bigger number is not what the work is worth: you cannot bill for time you never had spare.

Generic "what AI could do" lists. Those are free in any search engine. A paid assessment should tell you what AI would do in your business, task by task.

No named tools. "Consider an AI scheduling tool" leaves all the hard work with you.

How does a useful assessment compare with a generic one?

The difference shows up in what you can act on the following Monday.

How does the Simplish AI Assessment work?

The Simplish AI Assessment costs £997, one payment, and follows the structure above in three steps. It is the Assess stage of our AOA method: Assess, Optimise, Automate.

1. A 45 minute discovery call with Danni, our AI business analyst. She calls at a time you choose and asks how your week actually runs. No preparation needed.
2. A nine slide report within 48 hours. I read the full transcript and build the report myself: five to seven opportunities, each costed in hours and pounds at £15 an hour, ranked on effort against impact, with the named tool, its monthly cost and its setup time.
3. A 60 minute Results Session with me. You walk through the report together, agree the numbers line by line, and decide what to fix first and who does it.

It also includes a 4 day quick win plan, a custom library of 15 to 20 prompts, a 30 day check in call, our weekly newsletter, and a discounted re-assessment every six months.

The guarantee. Your report will identify at least 5 hours a week you and / or your team could get back, or you receive a full refund. The promise covers hours identified in the report, not hours you go on to recover, which depends on what you implement. UK small business owners average 11 hours a week on admin and finance tasks (American Express and Small Business Saturday UK, SME Business Barometer, 2026), so if your business is anywhere near average, five is a floor, not a stretch.

Who is this for?

An AI assessment suits owner led businesses of three to twelve people where repetitive admin is spread across the team and nobody has time to work out which tools are worth using.

It is not for you if your team does little repetitive work, if you need an AI strategy for a large organisation, or if you only need one specific automation built. If you are unsure, the free Mini Assessment is a ten minute call with Danni, our AI business analyst, about one task, followed by a fifteen minute call where I hand you the fix.