What is an AI readiness assessment?
An AI readiness assessment measures how prepared an organisation is to adopt AI, across its technology, leadership, workforce, delivery and investment. Digital Towns scores readiness from 0 to 100 across five dimensions, places you in one of five readiness tiers, and benchmarks you against peers.
0–100 score · 5 dimensions · 5 readiness tiers · UK data residency
How it works
A number, a tier, and the gap to close first.
The score is not the point. Knowing which of the five dimensions is holding you back, and what to do about it, is.
Answer a short assessment
Fifteen questions, each tied to one of five dimensions, so every answer moves a score you can trace back to a question.
Get a Digital Score from 0 to 100
One overall score, plus a score for each of the five dimensions, so you can see which one is holding you back.
Land in a readiness tier
Five tiers per assessment, from the lowest to the highest. The tier is the plain-English version of the number.
Get a plan for the gaps
A 30, 60 and 90-day growth plan targeting the weakest dimensions, with courses and milestones attached.
The assessments
Five dimensions, calibrated to who is answering.
A council does not become AI-ready the same way a business does, so the dimensions differ. The 0 to 100 scale and the five-tier structure do not, which keeps results comparable.
Businesses and SMEs
Whether a business is ready to put AI into day-to-day operations.
- 01Technology and Data
- 02Leadership and Strategy
- 03Workforce and Culture
- 04Implementation
- 05Investment and ROI
Readiness tiers
Combined Authority growth teams
How well an authority coordinates and measures AI adoption across its region.
- 01Strategic Coordination
- 02Programme Reach and Scale
- 03Data and Measurement
- 04Skills Ecosystem
- 05SME Engagement
Readiness tiers
Council growth teams
How ready a council is to support AI adoption among local businesses.
- 01Local AI Strategy
- 02Business Engagement
- 03Digital Infrastructure
- 04Skills and Workforce
- 05Data and Accountability
Readiness tiers
Individuals
A person's own AI awareness, confidence and skills. Used for staff and students.
- 01AI Awareness
- 02AI Use and Confidence
- 03Digital Skills Foundation
- 04Career and Workplace
- 05Learning and Development
Readiness tiers
One score, five dimensions, a clear next action
Assessment Builder
Not just our assessment. Build your own.
If none of the four assessments fits, build your own. Universities, NHS trusts and any other organisation can define their own dimensions, questions and weighting, and run them through the same scoring and benchmarking engine as the Digital Score.
Your dimensions, your criteria
Define the dimensions and questions that matter to you. Every question is linked to a dimension, so the score reflects your model rather than ours.
Weighting you control
Set weights per question and per dimension, and choose your own score bands and badge thresholds.
Target it, then roll it out
Aim an assessment at specific roles, keep it inside your own organisation, share it with named organisations, or push it across every organisation in your network.
Scored and benchmarked
Custom assessments run through the same scoring and benchmarking engine as the Digital Score, with results benchmarked by sector, region and size across your respondents.
Built in a four-step wizard, with no code. Assessments are versioned, so you can revise one without detaching the submissions already taken against it. Agencies and partners can build on behalf of a commissioning council, with visibility shared between both.
No code required · Versioned · Governed by role-based access
Where we are
What exists today, and what does not.
We would rather tell you now than in procurement.
Available today
- AI readiness assessments for businesses, Combined Authority growth teams, council growth teams and individuals
- The 0 to 100 Digital Score, readiness tiers and peer benchmarking
- 30, 60 and 90-day growth plans
- The no-code Assessment Builder
- The governance and audit layer, including CHAP
In development
- A university-specific assessment. Staff and students take the individual assessment today.
- An NHS-specific assessment, with DSPT alignment and board, ICB and CQC evidence reporting.
- Cyber Essentials and a DSPT self-assessment. Neither is complete, and we do not claim otherwise.
Early access
Request access to the Digital Score.
The platform is in early access while we onboard our first organisations. Tell us who you are and what you need to assess, and we will get you set up and walk you through it.
UK data residency · ICO registered · Human-governed AI
Questions
AI readiness, answered.
What is an AI readiness assessment?
An AI readiness assessment measures how prepared an organisation is to adopt artificial intelligence. It scores readiness across several dimensions, typically covering technology and data, leadership, workforce skills, delivery capability and investment, and places the organisation on a readiness scale. The purpose is to show where an organisation stands before it invests in AI, and which gap to close first.
What is a Digital Score?
A Digital Score is Digital Towns' measure of AI readiness. It is a 0 to 100 score across five dimensions, together with a readiness tier and a breakdown showing which dimension is weakest. Digital Scores are benchmarked against sector and regional peers.
What are the five dimensions of an AI readiness assessment?
The five dimensions depend on who is being assessed. A business is scored on technology and data, leadership and strategy, workforce and culture, implementation, and investment and ROI. A council growth team is scored on local AI strategy, business engagement, digital infrastructure, skills and workforce, and data and accountability. Combined Authority growth teams and individuals each have five dimensions of their own. Every assessment uses five dimensions and the same 0 to 100 scale, so results stay comparable.
How long does an AI readiness assessment take?
The business assessment takes about 12 to 15 minutes. Each assessment is fifteen questions, three per dimension.
What are the AI readiness tiers?
Each assessment places you in one of five readiness tiers. Businesses run from AI Dormant to AI-Led. Council growth teams run from AI Absent to AI Pioneer. Combined Authority growth teams run from AI Inactive to AI Benchmark. Individuals run from AI Novice to AI Pioneer. The tier is a plain-English reading of the 0 to 100 score.
Is there an assessment for universities or the NHS?
Not yet, as a dedicated assessment. Today, university staff and students, and clinical and non-clinical NHS staff, take the individual AI readiness assessment, which produces a Digital Score and a growth plan per person and benchmarks at cohort or team level. University-specific and NHS-specific assessments are in development. In the meantime, any organisation can build its own assessment with the no-code Assessment Builder, using its own dimensions, questions and weighting.
Who sees my results?
It depends on who gave you the assessment. If a combined authority or council invited you to complete one, that authority sees your score and your progress, and it counts towards their regional evidence base. If you came to Digital Towns yourself, your results are yours: no authority sees them. Visibility follows the assessment you took, not the postcode you sit in.
How much does it cost?
Pricing depends on your organisation and how you plan to use the platform. Talk to our team and we will be straight with you about what it would cost.
Can we use our own AI readiness framework instead?
Yes. The Assessment Builder is a no-code tool for creating an assessment with your own dimensions, questions, weighting and score bands. Custom assessments run through the same scoring and benchmarking engine as the Digital Score, and are versioned, so revising one does not detach the submissions already taken against it.
How is the platform governed?
The platform is built on Microsoft Azure with UK data residency. AI decisions are written to a tamper-evident, SHA-256 hash-chained audit trail with Ed25519-signed records, and a human-oversight ladder can run AI in shadow, supervised or autonomous mode with human approval and override. We integrate the Collaborative Human-Agent Protocol (CHAP), so a named person stays accountable for every AI decision.