Every company has an AI roadmap. Almost none have passed their own readiness checklist.
The pattern I see most often: ambitious timelines, board pressure to “do AI,” and rushed assessments of whether the constraints are actually met.
Here’s what actually determines AI readiness:
Data coverage gaps identified? What decisions can’t you make today because the data doesn’t exist? AI can’t hallucinate missing business data - it just fails silently.
Data integration capabilities assessed? AI needs data from multiple systems. If your data lives in silos with no integration layer, your AI will only see fragments.
Compliance requirements identified? GDPR, HIPAA, AI Act - depends on your industry. If your legal team hasn’t reviewed your AI data plans, stop.
Success metrics defined? “We want AI” isn’t a goal. What business outcome improves? By how much? How will you measure it?
Training budget allocated? Not for the AI model - for your people. The tool is useless if nobody adopts it.
I still don’t fully understand why this checklist gets ignored so often. Maybe AI feels different. It isn’t. It’s infrastructure like everything else.
Readiness is 40% infrastructure, 30% data, 20% governance, 10% culture. AI is the easy part.
Which of these five is the biggest blocker for your AI plans right now?