// SELF-ASSESSMENT · 15 QUESTIONS · 6 MINUTES

The AI Value Gap. Where does your company actually sit?

Everyone is buying AI. Almost nobody is making new money from it. Spend flows to efficiency because it is countable. The value sits in revenue reinvention because it is not. Answer fifteen questions below and we place your business on two axes: the efficiency you have realised, and the new revenue you have created. Your quadrant appears the moment you submit.

15 questions · about 6 minutes · your quadrant on screen · nothing is stored or sent

I also scored 120 companies on the same questions from public sources, mostly their own filings and statements. See what they disclose and what they leave out →

A · About you

Three quick questions about your company.

// 01
Your role
// 02
Your sector
// 03
Company stage
B · The efficiency axis

How far you have actually deployed AI to run the existing business better, and whether the value showed up.

// 04
How far have you deployed AI to improve operational efficiency?
// 05
How do realised savings compare with what you expected?
// 06
If AI freed up capacity, what happened to it? The honest answer here is the one that predicts whether the saving was real.
// 07 · optional
Do you expect your efficiency advantage to last?
// 08 · optional
Has AI efficiency improved the customer's experience, or shifted work onto them?
C · The revenue axis

Whether AI has helped you earn money you could not previously earn, not just spend less earning the money you already had.

// 09
Have you created any new revenue that AI made possible?
// 10 · select all that apply, or None yet
If you have, what type?
// 11
What is the biggest barrier to new AI-enabled revenue?
// 12
How are new-revenue ideas evaluated and funded?
D · The tension
// 13
Roughly how is your AI investment split between efficiency and new revenue?
// 14
Which best describes your board or leadership's AI ambition?
// 15 · optional
In one line, what is the single biggest blocker to getting more value from AI?
Please answer the required questions before submitting.
// YOUR PLACEMENT

—

High New revenue created Low
FragileNew money, shaky ops
ReinventorsThe goal
WatchingEarly or paused
The Efficiency TrapOptimised to a commodity
Efficiency realised, low to high →

—

Efficiency realised 0 / 100
New revenue created 0 / 100
That is your read. Nothing you entered has been stored or sent. The operating-model tool goes deeper on the efficiency axis, and Reinventors on the new-revenue axis.
Explore the operating-model tool→ Request a 30-minute intro call

This tool is part of the field guide AI and the Board: the questions a board should ask about AI, and the tools that help answer them.

Read the guide

FAQs

What is the AI Value Gap self-assessment?

A short self-assessment that places a company on two axes: operational efficiency realised from AI, and new AI-enabled revenue created. The result is a quadrant read (Watching, The Efficiency Trap, Fragile, Reinventors) with an operator's note on what to do next. Free, and it runs in the browser.

Who is it for?

CEOs, CFOs, chairs and PE operating partners of growth-stage software and AI businesses. Also useful for boards trying to distinguish real AI value creation from AI spend. Answer for one company at a time.

What are the two axes measuring?

Axis one measures operational efficiency actually realised: cost taken out, cycle time reduced, hours removed. Axis two measures new AI-enabled revenue actually earned: new products, new segments, new pricing. Companies that score well on axis one and poorly on axis two are in the Efficiency Trap: real cost savings, no revenue upside.

What is The Efficiency Trap?

The pattern where a business spends on AI, generates real internal efficiency gains, and produces no new revenue. It is where most AI programmes land. It is not a failure of AI, it is a failure of the operating model to convert AI capability into a new product, new segment or new pricing. The fractional CGO role is often what closes that gap.

Is my answer captured?

No. The self-assessment runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is stored or sent, and there is no email field.

How long does it take?

About six minutes. Fifteen questions, one page. The quadrant read appears on screen when you submit.

What do I do with the result?

Use the quadrant read as the frame for the next board discussion about AI spend. If the read is Efficiency Trap, the question is not whether to spend more on AI but which of the AI capabilities can be repriced or productised into revenue. That is a different conversation and it changes the operating model.

// GET IN TOUCH

Clarity when it counts.

For a board, advisory or fractional engagement, or a working call on the next stage, send a note. Thirty minutes is usually enough to test fit.

Request a 30-minute intro call