AI readiness: what it actually means for a small company

AI readiness isn't buying ChatGPT Enterprise. It's answering three questions: 1. **Data:** Is your critical business data organized, accessible, and permissioned? 2. **Use cases:** Where would automation save real hours — not just impress in a demo? 3. **Risk:** What happens when the AI is wrong? Who reviews outputs? **Practical first steps:** - Pick one workflow with clear inputs and outputs - Run a 2-week pilot with human review on every output - Measure time saved before expanding