PART OF AI STRATEGY
The AI Maturity Model.
A detailed map of where your organization stands with AI.
The hardest part of an AI strategy engagement is getting an organization to see itself accurately before any move gets recommended. Leadership teams tend to have a sharp view of the areas they discuss every week and a blurry view of everything else, so their sense of their own AI maturity is usually off in ways they can't see. The Maturity Model is the instrument I use to correct the picture.
Organizations don't advance uniformly, so a single overall score would hide the differences that matter. Instead the model produces what I call a maturity surface: a separate reading for each capability at each level of the organization, laid out side by side. Your technology can be far ahead of your culture, and one function can be years ahead of another; the surface shows exactly where.
THE INSTRUMENT
5 STAGES
01
Foundational
02
Emerging
03
Embedded
04
Integrated
05
Optimizing
3 LEVELS
Enterprise
Manager & Team
Individual
10 DIMENSIONS
Explore each below ↓
SECTION 01 · HOW MATURITY EVOLVES
The five stages of AI maturity.
A stage describes how far AI has spread into daily operations, from early experimentation to full integration. Moving up a stage changes what the organization can do, who it needs, and what risks it carries. Click a stage to expand the detail.
STAGE · 01 · EXPLORATION
~45-55% of orgs
Foundational
AI exists as individual experimentation. No coordinated strategy. Usage is ad hoc, often hidden from leadership. Value is anecdotal. Risk governance is absent. Most organizations self-report higher than this. Most organizations are here.
SIGNALS YOU ARE HERE
- No named AI owner, no AI budget line
- Pilots running without a strategy connecting them
- AI conversations are equal parts hype and uncertainty
- Tool decisions made team-by-team without coordination
HOW TO MOVE UP
- 01Name an executive sponsor with budget authority
- 02Write a one-page AI strategy that names what you will NOT do
- 03Pick two pilots with measurable success criteria up front
- 04Draft an AI acceptable-use policy before scale forces one
MATURITY STAGES
Click a stage →
SECTION 02 · WHERE IT GETS MEASURED
The three levels where maturity is measured.
A level is where a capability lives: with individual people, with managers and their teams, or in enterprise-wide systems and policy. The enterprise level sets the ceiling for everyone below it. The manager and team layer is where strategy gets translated into daily practice, which is why most transformation programs stall there. Individual skills are the easiest to measure, and for that reason they tend to get more attention than they deserve on their own. Click a tier to expand the detail.
LEVEL · INDIVIDUAL
How individual contributors understand, adopt, and work alongside AI tools.
This is where literacy, comfort, and daily usage patterns live. An organization can have enterprise-level AI strategy and near-zero individual adoption. The gap between those two levels is where most transformation programs stall. This level is also the easiest to over-index on because it is the easiest to measure.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR AT THIS LEVEL
- Heavy AI usage in pockets, none elsewhere
- Self-reported confidence higher than demonstrated skill
- No shared vocabulary across the contributor layer
- People hiding AI use because the org hasn't said it's okay
ORGANIZATIONAL LEVELS
Click to explore →
SECTION 03 · WHAT GETS MEASURED
The ten dimensions of AI capability.
A dimension is one distinct capability the organization needs to get right. The ten span strategy, operations, technology, people, and governance, and they interact: a lasting gap in one of them, governance for example, can cap how far the others can safely go. Click any piece to expand the detail.
DIM · 01 · M · MANAGEMENT
Strategy & Value Realization
Strategy is what turns AI from a tools conversation into a business conversation. Without it, every AI initiative gets justified on its own and the organization has no answer to "why this and not that."
FOUNDATIONAL LOOKS LIKE
AI strategy is a few slides nobody owns. Initiatives compete for budget without shared criteria.
OPTIMIZING LOOKS LIKE
AI strategy is part of business strategy. Initiatives are prioritized against named outcomes with measurable returns.
THE QUESTION
Can three randomly chosen executives describe the AI strategy the same way?
TEN CAPABILITY DIMENSIONS
Click any piece →
THE ASSESSMENT
The AI Maturity Assessment.
The assessment is how your organization gets placed on the model, and how that placement becomes a plan. It draws on three kinds of evidence.
INPUT · 01
Structured interviews
Across all three organizational levels. We separate self-perception from observable practice in the same conversation.
INPUT · 02
Artifact review
Strategy documents, governance policies, training materials, role definitions. Comparing what these say with what people described in interviews tends to reveal the most useful gaps.
INPUT · 03
Calibrated survey
A survey across the wider workforce. The questions describe concrete, observable behaviors, so results can be compared fairly across teams, and the reach goes far beyond what interviews alone can cover.
OUTPUT
Your maturity surface, and what to do about it.
A heat map across all ten dimensions and all three levels, with the evidence behind each rating. Alongside it, a prioritized roadmap of what to move first, with named owners and measurable signals.
The assessment usually pairs with AI strategy consulting: it finds the gaps, and the strategy work designs the plan to close them. It can also run on its own.
GET ASSESSED
Find out where your organization stands.
If you want the full assessment, reach out and we will scope it together. If you would rather start with a lighter directional read, ask about the waitlist for the self-guided version when you get in touch.