Rank, don’t guess
Every candidate is scored on value, effort and readiness, so the first project is the one most likely to pay off.
AI strategy consulting that ends in a plan you can act on.
Find which AI opportunities are worth the investment, check what they depend on, and leave with a scoped pilot instead of a slide deck.
Why start with strategy
The first use case
decides the rest.
Picking the wrong first project is the most common reason AI stalls. A short, structured review prevents months of work on something that cannot ship.
Check before you build
Data, system access and approval points are reviewed before any development starts.
Define success up front
Test cases and acceptance criteria are written before the pilot, not after.
The AI Opportunity Review
Know what to build first, and what it takes.
Our fixed-scope entry point to AI strategy consulting. Bring a business problem or a workflow; a fully formed AI brief is optional.
- Length
- Agreed at the start, based on the workflows in scope
- Price
- Agreed before the review begins
- Who takes part
- The owner or operations lead, plus the people who do the work today
- You receive
- A ranked list of AI opportunities, a scoped pilot proposal with test cases, and a list of prerequisites: data, access and owners
- Next step
- A pilot with agreed acceptance criteria, or a clear decision not to proceed
What happens in the review
Three stages,
one decision.
Find a useful first task
Examine the work that consumes time or creates avoidable rework.
- Map inputs, decisions and handoffs
- Estimate time spent today
- Select a bounded use case and agree how improvement is measured
You receive: a ranked shortlist of AI opportunities.
Establish feasibility
Understand the conditions a solution depends on.
- Review sample information and access
- Identify system connections and constraints
- Define which decisions stay with people
You receive: a list of prerequisites: data, access and owners.
Define the pilot
Make the first implementation specific enough to evaluate.
- Set scope and test cases
- Record dependencies and exclusions
- Outline rollout, cost and operational ownership
You receive: a scoped pilot proposal with acceptance criteria.
Generative AI consulting
Where generative AI
fits, and where it does not.
Generative AI is strong at reading, drafting and summarising. It is weaker where exact calculation or guaranteed accuracy is required. The review is explicit about which parts of a workflow suit it.
Good fit
Reading documents and emails, extracting fields, drafting replies, summarising records, answering from approved content.
Needs a person
Final approvals, unusual cases, anything with legal, financial or safety consequences.
Not AI
Fixed rules and calculations, which are often better handled by ordinary automation.
Typical opportunities
What the review
often finds.
Illustrative examples of the kind of opportunity a review ranks. Your list depends on your workflows.
Sales
Keep the CRM complete without retyping.
An intake workflow reads enquiry emails and web forms, creates or updates the CRM record, assigns an owner and flags missing details before follow-up.
Operations
Turn incoming documents into checked records.
A document workflow extracts the required fields from orders, invoices or applications, checks completeness and queues anything ambiguous for a person.
Customer support
Answer routine questions from approved sources.
A support assistant drafts replies from your help content, cites the source, and routes anything it cannot answer to the right person.
Finance and admin
Reduce manual matching and chasing.
A workflow matches incoming documents to records, prepares exceptions for review and drafts reminders for a person to approve.
Is it right for you?
Signs you need AI
strategy consulting.
Several ideas, no decision
The team has suggested AI uses, but nobody has compared them on value, effort and readiness.
A stalled pilot
Something was tried, worked on examples, and never reached daily use.
Pressure without a plan
Customers, competitors or the board are asking about AI and you need a grounded answer.
Questions
AI strategy
consulting, answered.
What is AI strategy consulting?
Working out which AI opportunities are worth pursuing, in what order, and what each one needs. For a small or mid-sized business it should end in one scoped project, not a long roadmap.
How is this different from a large firm’s AI strategy?
The scope is one business and its real workflows. The output is a pilot you can approve, with test cases and costs, rather than an enterprise transformation plan.
How long does the AI Opportunity Review take and what does it cost?
Both are agreed before the review starts and depend on how many workflows are in scope.
Do we have to use Formals for the build?
No. The pilot proposal is written so that any capable team could deliver it.
What if the review finds AI is not the right answer?
Then it says so. Some problems are better solved with simpler automation or a process change, and the review recommends that instead.
Can you advise on generative AI tools we already pay for?
Yes. The review can assess whether existing tools cover the use case before anything new is built.
Work with FormalsNot sure where
Not sure where
to start?
Bring a business problem or a workflow. A fully formed AI brief is optional.
Book an AI Opportunity Review