AI Maturity Assessment

What does the assessment process help with?

The assessment process provides a comprehensive evaluation of the organization's current AI capabilities and identifies specific areas for improvement. This helps the organization to prioritize its AI initiatives and investments and focus on those areas that will have the greatest impact. Furthermore, the collaborative workshop at the end of the process provides an opportunity for stakeholders from across the organization to come together and coordinate their AI work and co-create a roadmap for advancing the organization's AI capabilities. This helps to build alignment and buy-in across the organization and ensures that AI initiatives are prioritized and implemented effectively.

Main gains of the assessment process

• Gaining a shared understanding of the organization's current AI maturity, helping to align stakeholders and focus efforts on improvement.
• Achieve better synchronization and coordination of AI work across functions and departments, resulting in improved efficiency and effectiveness.
• Receive actionable recommendations and a concrete roadmap for increased AI maturity, based on the organization's unique insights and needs, providing a clear path forward.
• Promote organizational learning as employees are exposed to key areas and prerequisites for AI maturity, resulting in improved knowledge and skill-building across the organization.

More than just a tool

The AI Maturity Assessment is a three-stage process that consists of assessment, analysis, and workshop.

1. Assessment
The first stage, assessment, involves using the AI Maturity Assessment Tool to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the organization's current AI capabilities. The evaluation consists of a survey designed to identify the organization's strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement in relation to a set of best practices identified through extensive research into successful AI organizations.

2. Analysis
In the second stage, analysis, the results of the assessment are analyzed and interpreted by experts from AI Sweden. This analysis involves identifying key trends, patterns, and insights from the assessment data, as well as benchmarking the organization's AI capabilities against industry best practices and standards.

3. Workshop
Finally, in the third stage, workshop, the results of the assessment and analysis are presented to a group of stakeholders from the organization in a collaborative workshop setting. The workshop provides an opportunity for participants to discuss and validate the assessment findings, share insights and perspectives, and co-create a roadmap for advancing the organization's AI capabilities. The roadmap outlines specific actions and initiatives that the organization can undertake to improve its AI maturity and advance to the next level of AI maturity.

What is AI Maturity?

AI Maturity refers to an organization's level of expertise in using AI technologies and applications. It considers various factors such as an organization's strategy, data infrastructure, technology platforms, talent capabilities, and governance processes, among others.

In simpler terms, AI Maturity is about how much an organization knows about AI and how well they are using it in their operations. An organization's AI Maturity level can be evaluated along a continuum, ranging from basic use of AI to more advanced and integrated use of AI across the organization. This is illustrated below in the AI Maturity Ladder.

Why is AI Maturity important?

According to research, nine out of ten companies agree that AI represents a business opportunity for them. However, only a few companies are able to realize value using the technology. Seven out of ten companies report minimal or no impact from their AI initiatives so far. Among the 90% of companies that have made some investment in AI, fewer than two out of five report business gains from AI in the past three years.

Why is this?
One of the reasons for this is that companies tend to treat AI as just another technology, but AI has different requirements in terms of development, operation, and maintenance, than other digital technologies, and this presents challenges for those who are entering the field of AI for the first time.

In addition, organizations face organizational, cultural, and knowledge challenges when they start using AI. Creating value with AI therefore requires some level of organizational transformation and new ways of working to truly accommodate the possibilities with this technology.

What can be done?
The assessment process provides valuable insights into an organization's readiness for AI, including their data infrastructure, technology platforms, talent capabilities, and governance processes. By identifying gaps in these areas, organizations can prioritize investments in technology, talent development, and governance structures that support AI adoption and integration.

Moreover, the assessment process encourages organizations to examine their existing culture and identify any obstacles to AI adoption, such as resistance to change, fear of automation, or a lack of data-driven decision-making. By understanding and addressing these cultural challenges, organizations can create a more supportive and collaborative environment for AI innovation and transformation.

Time and effort

Participating in the AI Maturity Assessment process requires a relatively small investment of time and effort from the organization compared to the potential benefits. In terms of hours, the full assessment requires approximately 80 hours of participation, with two individuals attending meetings and around 60 people contributing to the evaluation and around 15 people to the workshop. The time commitment is designed to be manageable and flexible, allowing organizations to make progress at a pace that suits their needs and priorities. The full process, which includes activities such as evaluation and workshop sessions, typically takes around 6 weeks to complete.

AI Maturity Assessment Training

Outside of the facilitated AI Maturity Assessment, we also offer an opportunity for partner organizations to train a certified AI assessor that can perform assessments in-house. This means that after completing the training, one person from your organization will have the necessary skills and knowledge to conduct AI maturity assessments internally.

Having an in-house certified AI assessor offers several benefits. By conducting assessments internally, you can tailor the evaluation process to the specific needs of each department and obtain more detailed insights into their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This is especially beneficial for larger organizations that may wish to assess several departments separately. Moreover, having an internal assessor can facilitate the implementation of the recommendations resulting from the assessments, ensuring a smoother and more effective digital transformation process.

The training program is designed to provide comprehensive knowledge and practical tools for assessing AI maturity, including the use of the AI Maturity Assessment Tool and facilitating the workshop.

With an in-house assessor, your organization will gain a competitive advantage in terms of AI maturity, as well as the ability to continuously monitor and improve AI capabilities across different parts of the organization.

Ambassador
In the Maturity Assessments AI Sweden facilitate, an ambassador from the organization is chosen to function like a project leader. The ambassador receives an introductory training about the planning and theory around the process, allowing the ambassador to lead the assessment internally and answer questions from the participants. The ambassador also oversees the results after the assessment and ensures that the organization follows the roadmap and makes progress accordingly.

The ambassador training can later be built upon, allowing the ambassador to become a certified AI assessor. This means that after completing the assessment process, the ambassador is already half-way to becoming a certified AI assessor, and an invaluable resource for the organization.