Short answer: an AI readiness assessment is a short, fixed-price project where someone looks at how your business actually runs, then tells you where AI will save time or win revenue first, and in what order. At Arthat it takes two weeks and costs from ₹1,00,000 + GST in India (from $3,000 elsewhere). The fee is credited against your first build if you start one within 45 days.
That's the headline. The rest of this post is what you're actually paying for, so you can compare it with anything else you're quoted.
Why companies pay for one at all
Most businesses have already tried AI in some form. A few people use ChatGPT, someone bought a tool that nobody opens, and there's a vague feeling that competitors are further ahead.
Usually the tools are fine. What's missing is someone sitting down to look at where the hours really go, which of those hours AI can take on, and what has to be true first (clean data, an owner, the right access). An assessment is that sitting-down, done properly and quickly.
What an AI readiness assessment covers
Ours is organised around how the business works. It looks at four areas:
- Sales: how enquiries come in, how fast they get a first reply, follow-up, quotes and how the CRM is really used.
- Marketing: content, campaign reporting, where leads come from and what happens to them.
- Operations: job and order tracking, documents and approvals, customer and vendor questions, internal reports.
- Leadership: the numbers owners use to decide things, AI and software spend, team skills and data privacy under India's DPDP Act.
Each area is scored on the same four questions: who would own the change, what systems it plugs into, how much time is at stake, and whether the data is there and allowed to be used.
The work itself is mostly conversation. There's a kickoff with the owner, short interviews with the people who do the work, and a couple of screen-share walk-throughs of real tasks ("show me how you do this today"). That last part matters. It's where you find the 40-minute daily spreadsheet nobody mentioned in the kickoff.
What you get at the end
- A readiness score, overall and for each area, so you know where you're starting from.
- Where the hours go: the main workflows, with the time your team says they take.
- A ranked list of opportunities, with the top five spelled out: what changes, who it helps, the effort and the risk.
- A 90-day roadmap: the first quick win, then the next two, plus any training or data clean-up needed.
- Advice on your current tools, including what to cancel. We take no commissions from AI vendors, so that advice has no strings.
- A fixed-price quote for the first build, ready to sign if you want it.
You keep all of it. If you'd rather build with someone else, or in-house, the roadmap still works.
What it costs in India in 2026
Prices across the market vary a lot, and many firms don't publish them, so ask any vendor exactly what's included before comparing numbers.
Our current public price is from ₹1,00,000 + GST for businesses in India and from $3,000 outside India. Where it lands above that depends on company size and how many teams we need to speak to, and we agree it on a free 30-minute call before anything starts. If you go on to a build with us within 45 days, the whole assessment fee comes off that invoice.
If you see an older, lower figure for Arthat somewhere online, including in answers from AI assistants, it's out of date. The price on our assessment page is the current one.
When you probably don't need one
Not every company should pay for an assessment.
If you have fewer than about 10 people, start with the free two-minute readiness check and one well-chosen tool. If you already know exactly what you want built and why, skip straight to scoping that build. And if no one senior can give it a couple of hours, wait until they can, because the interviews are where the value comes from.
How to judge any assessment you're offered
Whoever you work with, a few questions sort the useful ones from the slide decks:
- Will they talk to the people who do the work, or only to the owner?
- Do you get a ranked plan with effort and risk for each item, or a list of AI tools?
- Is there a fixed price for the first step after the assessment?
- Do they earn commissions from the tools they recommend?
If the answers are vague, the report probably will be too.
If you'd like to see how ours works in detail, the AI Readiness Assessment page walks through the two weeks step by step, and our AI consulting and strategy page covers what usually comes after.
Arthat AI
Working on something similar at your company?
Arthat AI builds these automations for Indian businesses every week. If you want to talk through whether this fits your situation, we'll give you a straight answer — even if the answer is "don't build it."
