AI strategy from engineers who ship, not advisors who recommend
Most AI strategy work is sold by partners who do not build and bought by executives who later cannot operationalise it. We are the opposite — an engineering firm with one hundred seventeen production accelerators behind us, advising executive teams on what is actually feasible, what costs what, and what breaks. The deliverable is not a deck. It is a roadmap your team can execute, a prioritised use-case backlog grounded in your data reality, and a first production pilot that proves the plan.
What we deliver
Honest AI readiness assessment
A structured four-dimensional audit — data, infrastructure, talent, strategic alignment — that produces an honest score and a clear gap list. We benchmark against where peer organisations in your sector and geography actually are, not against an idealised Silicon Valley maturity model. The output is something your CIO can show the board.
Use-case prioritisation that survives contact with reality
We score candidate use cases on a four-axis matrix — business value, technical feasibility against your actual data, time to value, and risk — and recommend a sequenced portfolio of three to five priority initiatives. Every score is defended against our delivery experience, so the prioritisation reflects what we know breaks in production, not what looks attractive in a workshop.
Hundred-day roadmap with named owners
From strategy approval to first AI capability in production: one hundred days, weekly milestones, named owners on your side and ours, named decision points where you can stop or pivot. Roadmaps without ownership and dates are wishlists. We do not produce wishlists.
Build, buy, or partner decision framework
Objective build-versus-buy assessment per capability, with a procurement shortlist, total-cost-of-ownership modelling over three years, and the integration and operating burden of each option laid out honestly. We will recommend you buy from a competitor when buying from a competitor is right.
AI governance and risk framework
A governance framework tailored to your industry and jurisdiction — EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, your central bank's AI guidance, your sector's regulatory specifics. Includes risk taxonomy, model-inventory practice, evaluation standards, incident response, and the committee structure that operates it. Built to pass an audit, not to look good in a slide.
Change management grounded in delivery
Executive alignment workshops, middle-management AI literacy, employee enablement on the specific tools they will use, and a measured adoption programme. Most AI transformations fail at adoption, not at technology — we treat this as engineering work, not a culture poster.
AI roadmap builder
How a query actually flows.
A real trace through the sovereign stack. Six stages, ~1.4 seconds end-to-end, zero packets leaving your perimeter.
How we deliver
Engage the executive sponsor
Two-week alignment sprint with the CEO, CTO, or CDO to confirm scope, business drivers, decision rights, and success criteria for the engagement itself. We will not start a strategy engagement that does not have a credible path to execution funding.
AI readiness assessment
Three weeks of deep-dive across your data estate, infrastructure, AI talent and skills, current AI initiatives, regulatory landscape, and strategic priorities. Includes interviews with twenty to forty stakeholders, technical audit, and competitive benchmarking. Output is a written readiness report and gap analysis.
Use-case discovery and prioritisation
Two-week cross-functional workshop programme to surface candidate use cases from business and functional leaders, then a rigorous scoring exercise against value, feasibility, and risk. Output is a prioritised portfolio with business cases for the top three to five initiatives.
Roadmap, governance, and operating model design
Three weeks to design the one-hundred-day execution roadmap, the AI governance framework, the operating model for AI delivery (centralised, federated, or hybrid), and the investment profile. Output is a board-ready strategy and an executable plan.
First pilot delivery
We do not just hand over a strategy and leave. The engagement includes commitment to deliver the first prioritised pilot to production within the one-hundred-day window, alongside your team. Strategy proven in practice, not in PowerPoint.
AI Strategy Consulting across every sector
The stack we build on
Frameworks
Assessment tooling
Governance
Delivery enablement
"We had three years of AI strategies on the shelf from various big consultancies. MindMap was different because they could answer 'how would you actually build this' for every recommendation, and then they did build the first one. Three months in we had two AI capabilities in production and a board that finally believed the programme."— Group CTO, Pan-African Financial Services Group
How we work together
Common questions
How is your AI strategy work different from a Big Four or strategy consultancy?+
We are an engineering firm, not a consulting firm. Our strategies are grounded in what we have actually shipped — one hundred seventeen accelerators across every major function, fifty-plus enterprise deployments in production. We know what is feasible, what breaks at scale, what costs what to run, and how long real things actually take. We do not sell theoretical frameworks; we sell roadmaps we could deliver tomorrow and frequently do.
Do you only do strategy or do you also implement?+
Both, and the combination is the point. Every full strategy engagement includes a commitment to deliver the first prioritised pilot to production under a pre-priced statement of work. Strategy without implementation is slides; implementation without strategy is waste. We do both, and we charge for both, and the second one validates the first.
How long does an engagement take?+
A rapid readiness sprint is two weeks fixed-scope. A full strategy engagement is six to eight weeks. An embedded CAIO arrangement runs three to six months. The first pilot delivery typically begins inside the strategy engagement and goes to production within one hundred days of strategy approval. We give you the timeline in writing at proposal stage.
How do you handle clients who already have an AI strategy?+
We frequently start from someone else's strategy document. The diagnostic is usually the same: the strategy was directionally right but not executable, the use-case prioritisation was based on workshops rather than data feasibility, and the implementation roadmap was missing the engineering reality. We re-baseline against your data and infrastructure, sharpen the priorities, and add the execution depth. Sometimes the conclusion is that the original strategy was sound and the gap was delivery — we are equally happy to lead the delivery.
What does the governance framework cover?+
Risk taxonomy with severity levels and treatment standards, model inventory practice and the tooling to maintain it, evaluation standards every model must clear before production, audit-log requirements and retention policy, incident response procedure including notifiable-event criteria, ethics review process for higher-risk use cases, and the committee structure that operates the framework. Tailored to your jurisdiction — EU AI Act, your central bank's guidance, sector-specific regulators.
How much does this cost?+
A rapid readiness sprint is a fixed price typically in the tens of thousands of pounds. A full strategy engagement runs into six figures depending on scope and geography. The embedded CAIO arrangement is priced on a monthly retainer basis. We price each engagement to the work, send you a scoped proposal, and do not have hidden change-order economics.
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