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AI Readiness Assessment

A consultant-led institutional audit that produces a defensible, documented baseline of where your institution actually stands on AI — not a vibe check, not a self-graded survey.

Over four to eight weeks, we conduct interviews, distribute structured surveys, audit your infrastructure and policies, run faculty focus groups, and deliver a written report your board, accreditor, or governance committee can actually rely on. This is the deeper, evidence-backed version of the free self-assessment — the one that holds up when someone asks how you know.

Who it's for

Provosts, deans, CAOs, and CIOs who need a defensible baseline before committing budget, hiring, or making public AI commitments.
Boards and governance committees that want an independent read on institutional AI posture — not a vendor's marketing deck.
K-12 superintendents and district leadership preparing for board-level policy decisions, state reporting, or community-facing AI announcements.
Institutions facing accreditation cycles, strategic planning refreshes, or post-incident reviews where AI readiness is suddenly a documented question.
Corporate L&D and training organization leaders whose executives are asking 'are we ready?' and expecting more than an opinion in answer.

What's included

Leadership and stakeholder interviews

Structured one-on-one interviews with executive sponsors, academic leadership, IT, faculty representatives, and student affairs. We listen for the gaps between the official story and the operational reality.

Institutional surveys

Calibrated surveys distributed across faculty, staff, and where appropriate students. We measure exposure, sentiment, skill, and policy awareness — not just opinions.

Infrastructure and tooling audit

A walk-through of your current AI and data infrastructure: licensed tools, shadow tools, identity and access posture, data flows, and the procurement decisions already in motion.

Faculty and staff focus groups

Two to four facilitated sessions surfacing the on-the-ground concerns — academic integrity, workload, equity, training gaps — that surveys alone tend to miss.

Policy and governance document review

We read what you have actually written down: AI acceptable use, academic integrity, data governance, procurement, faculty handbook. We tell you where the language is strong, where it contradicts itself, and where it is silent.

Written report and leadership presentation

A full written report with dimension scorecards, prioritized recommendations, and a risk register — followed by a live presentation to your leadership team or board, with a working Q&A.

What's not included

Honest about scope. Things you might assume are included but aren't:

We do not implement the recommendations we deliver. That is a separate engagement — and keeping diagnosis and implementation apart protects the integrity of both.
We do not write your institution's AI policy during this engagement. We tell you what your current policies say and where they fail; drafting new policy is its own scoped piece of work.
We do not benchmark you against named peer institutions. Public AI maturity data is thin and unreliable; we will not invent comparisons we cannot defend.

How it works

1

Kickoff and scoping · 1 week

We align on the questions leadership actually needs answered, identify interview and focus-group participants, agree on document access, and set the cadence for status updates. Scope is documented in writing before fieldwork begins.
2

Fieldwork · 2-4 weeks

Interviews, surveys, focus groups, infrastructure walk-through, and policy document collection. This is the longest phase by design — superficial fieldwork produces superficial findings.
3

Analysis and synthesis · 1-2 weeks

We score each dimension, triangulate across interview themes, survey results, and document evidence, and identify the two or three findings that actually matter most. We share preliminary themes with the executive sponsor before the report is drafted.
4

Draft report and review · 1 week

A complete draft delivered to the executive sponsor with a structured review window. We correct factual errors, sharpen recommendations, and confirm anonymization — we do not soften findings to make them palatable.
5

Final report and leadership presentation · 1 week

Final written report delivered, followed by a live presentation to leadership, the board, or a steering committee. We stay for the hard questions.

Sample deliverables

Executive summary (2-4 pages) suitable for board or cabinet circulation
Per-dimension maturity scorecard with evidence citations from the engagement
Prioritized recommendations distinguishing 90-day moves, this-year moves, and multi-year moves
Risk register covering academic integrity, data governance, equity, vendor lock-in, and reputational exposure
Stakeholder sentiment summary drawn from survey and focus-group data, with anonymization preserved
Policy gap analysis pointing at specific sections of existing documents that need revision

Engagement pattern

What these engagements usually find

A common pattern: leadership believes the institution is further along than the operational evidence shows, while faculty and staff are using AI tools more — and more anxiously — than the official policy reflects. The assessment converts that gap into a documented, scored baseline that leadership can act on without guessing, and gives faculty a place where their concerns were actually heard and written down.

Questions you might have

How long does this take?

Four to eight weeks end to end, depending on institutional size, complexity, and how quickly we can get on calendars. Shorter than that and the fieldwork is too thin; longer than that and the findings start to stale.

What does it cost?

Institutional consulting scope — see the investment range below. The honest answer is that we scope it after a discovery call, because a single-campus K-12 district and a multi-college university are very different engagements. We will give you a written estimate before you commit.

Is this confidential?

Yes. Interview and focus-group inputs are anonymized in the report. The final report is your property — we do not publish findings, name your institution publicly, or use your data to train anything. We will sign a mutual NDA before fieldwork.

What if leadership does not like the findings?

We will not soften findings to make them comfortable. We will, however, present them with care and context — there is a difference between honest and gratuitous. If the report says the governance is thin or the policy is contradictory, that is what it will say, because that is what you are paying us to tell you.

How is this different from a McKinsey or Deloitte engagement?

We are smaller, faster, education-specific, and considerably less expensive. We will not staff a pyramid of analysts on your project. You work with a small, senior team that has spent its career in education and AI, not in general management consulting. If you need a global tier-one brand on the cover of the report for political reasons, hire one of them. If you need a defensible answer and a clear roadmap, hire us.

Investment range

Institutional consulting scope — typical engagements fall in the mid-five to low-six figures (USD) depending on institutional size, number of campuses or business units, depth of policy review, and whether on-site fieldwork is required. We scope and quote in writing after a no-cost discovery conversation.

Discuss scoping Try the self-assessment first

Evidence-based assessment is the foundation of effective AI strategy. You can't improve what you don't measure.

I insist that equity indicators be included in every assessment. Readiness means readiness for all stakeholders, not just the majority.

The assessment is eye-opening. Every institution I've worked with discovered significant gaps they weren't aware of — and specific steps to close them.

You can't navigate a transformation you haven't mapped. Assessment is the strategic foundation — it turns vague aspirations into concrete, actionable roadmaps.

Comprehensive AI training designed for educators, by educators. From awareness to mastery.

Explore the Program Intro to AI for Educators