How ready a business is for AI and how to tell whether AI is actually working.
6 articles on AI Readiness and Results, with research, practical frameworks and lessons from working with businesses.
Only 13% of UK construction businesses use AI, against 58% in information and communication. Here is why, and a simple way for a small trades firm to start: at the desk, with quotes and invoices, not on the site.
Official surveys in the UK and US show the smallest firms use AI least. If you run a business with fewer than ten people, your first move is not a policy or a program. It is the Small Room Test: could the work carry on if the one person who knows AI were away for two weeks?
A ten-question test to find out whether your business files are ready for AI: one named document, one owner and one check date per question, with a sheet to copy and a move for every result.
Most surveys count how many businesses use AI. None count how deeply your own team does. This ten-minute setup and two-minute conversation check, with a copyable sheet, shows whether your team's AI use is deep or only widespread.
Most businesses using AI cannot say whether it is working, because nobody wrote down a before number. Here is a simple way to measure AI job by job: time, corrections, and where the saved hours go.
Your business is ready for AI when seven things are in place: purpose, permission, ownership, capability, protection, foundations and evidence. Here is a diagnostic question for each, what strong and weak look like in a small business, and why your readiness is your lowest score, not your average.
