AI readiness assessment or workflow audit? What it costs and what you should get
Most AI readiness assessments end in a slide deck. A workflow audit ends with an agent running on your real cases and a go or no-go. What each one covers, what it costs, and what to ask for.
George Jucan, Founder, Poligon Tech 4 min
Short answer
An AI readiness assessment scores your whole organisation on data, skills and strategy, and usually ends in a report. A workflow audit looks at one costly process, measures it, and tests an AI agent on your real cases, ending with a go or no-go decision. Our workflow audit is a fixed fee: €1,500 excluding VAT for our first three clients, then from €2,500, credited towards the build if you go ahead within 30 days.
If you search for help getting started with AI, you will find two kinds of offer: the AI readiness assessment and the AI audit. The names overlap, the deliverables vary wildly, and the prices range from free webinars to six-figure consulting engagements.
Here is how to tell them apart, and what you should expect to get for your money.
Two different questions
An AI readiness assessment asks: Is our organisation ready for AI? It typically scores data quality, infrastructure, skills, governance and leadership alignment across the business, then recommends a roadmap.
A workflow audit asks a narrower question: Is this specific process worth augmenting with AI, and can it actually work on our data? It picks one costly workflow, measures it, and tests an agent on real cases.
| AI readiness assessment | Workflow audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Whole organisation | One workflow |
| Typical output | Maturity scores, roadmap, report | Workflow map, measured baseline, agent tested on real cases |
| Ends with | Recommendations | A go or no-go for a specific pilot |
| Best for | Large organisations setting strategy | Teams with a process that is clearly costing time |
Neither is wrong. But if you already know which process hurts (the order desk retyping emails into the ERP, the team chasing missing delivery documents, the analyst rebuilding the same spreadsheet every Monday), an organisation-wide assessment will mostly tell you what you already know.
What a good workflow audit should deliver
Whoever you hire, ask for these six things. They are what we deliver:
- A workflow map. How cases really move today, including the workarounds nobody wrote down.
- An exception catalogue. Every way a case goes off the happy path, how often it happens and what it costs. In most operational workflows the normal cases run fine; the exceptions consume the team’s time.
- A measured baseline. Cycle time, volume and rework, measured, so any later improvement can be shown rather than claimed.
- Clear boundaries. What the agent would do alone, what a person approves, and what stays entirely human. (More on this in designing human-in-the-loop approvals.)
- Working proof. An agent running on a sample of your real cases, not a demo on invented data.
- A go or no-go. A pilot plan with scope and price, or the reasons not to proceed.
If an audit can’t end in “no”, it is a sales process, not an audit.
What it costs
Organisation-wide assessments from large consultancies are usually multi-week engagements, priced like it. A focused workflow audit is a much smaller piece of work, and it should have a fixed price agreed before it starts.
Our pricing, stated plainly:
- The first call is free. Thirty minutes. You walk us through the workflow that keeps breaking; we tell you honestly whether it is worth augmenting.
- The audit is a fixed fee. €1,500 excluding VAT for our first three clients, in exchange for a case study. After that, from €2,500.
- The fee is credited towards the build if you go ahead within 30 days.
- The build is priced from what the audit finds, agreed before work starts, typically 4 to 8 weeks depending on the workflow and system access.
How long it takes and what we need from you
The audit itself takes 5 to 7 working days. From your side it needs:
- a process owner who can make decisions about the workflow,
- a few operators who know the exceptions first-hand,
- an IT contact who can arrange read access to the systems involved,
- real past cases you can share securely.
No ERP migration and no new platform. The agent works over the systems you already use.
When an audit is not the right step
Be honest with yourself about these. If any are true, an audit will struggle:
- The brief is “we need AI” with no specific process in mind.
- Real cases or data can’t be accessed, even under NDA.
- What you actually need is an ERP migration.
- You want full autonomy from day one, with no human approval.
In those cases, the better first step is internal: pick the one workflow your team complains about most, and find out who owns it.
Questions to ask any provider
Whether you work with us or someone else:
- Will you test on our real cases, or on sample data?
- Is the price fixed before you start?
- What exactly do we receive at the end?
- Will you tell us not to proceed if that is the answer?
- Who does the work: the people we meet in the sales call, or someone else?
If you have a workflow in mind, the workflow audit page has the details, or get in touch to book the free call. To understand what we would actually build afterwards, read What is an agent harness?
Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI audit cost?
It depends on scope. Organisation-wide readiness assessments from large consultancies often run for weeks and are priced accordingly. A focused workflow audit of one process is smaller. Ours is a fixed fee of €1,500 excluding VAT for our first three clients, then from €2,500, and the fee is credited towards the build if you proceed within 30 days.
How long does a workflow audit take?
Ours takes 5 to 7 working days, after a free 30-minute call to check the workflow is a good fit. If the audit says go, the build typically takes 4 to 8 weeks, depending on the workflow and system access.
What do you need from us for a workflow audit?
A process owner, a few operators who know the exceptions, an IT contact who can arrange access, and a set of real past cases you can share securely.
What if the audit says AI isn't worth it?
Then you get a no-go with the reasons, and you have spent a week instead of a quarter finding out. A credible audit has to be willing to say no.