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The Mid-Market AI Readiness Checklist

A 20-point self-assessment for Australian mid-market leaders — before you spend another dollar on AI.

It’s the free, do-it-yourself version of the diagnostic we run in our two-week AI Readiness Audit. You score yourself Yes / Partly / No across five areas; the gaps you can’t honestly tick are exactly what’s worth closing before you spend a dollar on a build.

Who it’s for: the COO, CFO or GM of an Australian mid-market firm who has either been pitched AI and wants to sanity-check readiness first, or has already spent on a pilot that stalled and wants to know why. No technical background needed — every question is in plain business language.

The five areas it covers

• 01Data & systems — Can AI actually reach your data?Whether the data behind your top three AI ambitions is accessible, owned and clean enough to build on — or still trapped in PDFs, spreadsheets and people’s heads.
• 02Use cases — Are you solving the right problem?Whether you’ve named specific, high-volume workflows with a rough dollar or hours value attached — not just “do something with AI” — and told the nice demos apart from the production-worthy ones.
• 03Governance & risk — Would it survive an audit?Whether an AI-assisted decision could be explained to a regulator, and whether your Privacy Act 2026 obligations, human checkpoints and an AI-systems register are actually in place.
• 04People & adoption — Will anyone actually use it?Whether the people whose work changes have been involved, there’s a named internal owner for each system, and a real plan to train them — not just hand over a licence and hope.
• 05Commercial & ROI — Does it pay off, and can you claim it?Whether you have a baseline to measure the “after” against, economics that still work at production scale, and any R&D Tax Incentive eligibility left on the table.

Your score points to the next step, not a verdict: score well and the risk is picking the wrong first project; score in the middle and there are specific gaps to close first; score low and the honest move is a readiness map before any build. Either way you finish with a clearer picture than a headline number — and if it’s useful, the Audit turns it into a costed, sequenced plan.

Last reviewed July 2026