Criteria helps companies identify where AI can create measurable operational value, prioritise the opportunities, and implement the highest-value ones. Then we stay until the people who have to use them do.
The problem
Almost every company has AI somewhere. Far fewer have people who use it, and fewer still can say what it earned. A system nobody uses cannot pay for itself.
Automation pointed at a task nobody was complaining about.
AI bought because the board asked for AI, not because a problem did.
Data that was not where the diagram said it was.
Cost that escalates the moment it leaves the demo.
Risk controls nobody owns.
A workflow nobody redesigned, so people went back to the spreadsheet.
0%
Of companies now use AI in at least one function. Only 39% can point to any measurable effect on earnings, and for most of those it is under 5%. McKinsey, State of AI, 2026.
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Generate no material value from their AI investment at all. Five percent create value at scale. BCG, 2026.
0%
Abandoned most of their AI initiatives last year, up from 17% the year before. The average company scrapped 46% of its proofs of concept before production. S&P Global, 2026.
The method
The first happens once. The other three repeat: you measure what landed, and the measurement sets the next roadmap. That loop is the part most programmes skip, which is why their AI never compounds.
Once, before anything else
We interview your executives and, separately, the people who do the work. Those two accounts rarely match, and the gap between them is where AI projects die. If you are not ready, you hear it here.
Executive and stakeholder interviews · current AI usage · data and technology readiness · capability gaps · prioritised next steps
Per business area · start of every cycle
We map one area as the work is really done, not as the process document describes it. You get named use cases in dependency order, each with a value estimate and a success metric, and an explicit list of what not to build.
Workflow and pain-point analysis · use-case definition · value and impact estimation · dependencies · success metrics and KPIs · phased roadmap
Per use case
We build and ship it ourselves. It goes live in shadow mode first, touching nothing, so you can compare its judgement against your team's on real cases, then challenger, then champion, each move only once the numbers earn it. The code, the prompts and the evals stay yours.
Solution design · AI agents and automations · system and API integrations · human-in-the-loop workflows · testing and evaluation · production deployment
Every cycle · then back to the roadmap
We train the people who have to live with it, inside their own work, and equip the champions who answer the questions once we have gone. This is training on the system we built, not general AI literacy. Then we measure against the metric from stage 02, and that sets the next roadmap.
Training on what we built · hands-on exercises using real work · onboarding materials · AI champion identification · adoption feedback and metrics
Who this is for
Whether you have not started with AI or you already have it running and cannot say what it earned, this is for you.
Where the method comes from
Years of experience in technology came down to one method.
This is not a framework we drew up and then went looking for companies to apply it to. It is what is left after years of building technology inside companies, and of being measured on what it changed rather than on what it shipped.
Every stage is there because we watched something fail without it. The people who arrived at it are the people who show up.
Common questions
Yes, and you may not need the whole method. If you already know what you want built, we go straight to stage 03 and skip the first two.
No. Each stage stands on its own and you can stop after any of them. If the readiness work or the roadmap already exists, we start from what you have rather than redoing it.
Usually not. Stage 01 tells you what the first use cases actually need, which is almost always less than a full data programme.
You agree the metric in stage 02, before anything is built. Stage 04 measures against it, and that measurement sets the next roadmap.
Much less than the value it creates. Tell us what you want to build and we will come back within one working day.