# AI Strategy Document Company: ______________________ Owner: ______________________ Date: ____________ Version: ______ Reviewers: ______________________________________________________ > How to use this file. Delete every instruction line (the ones starting with >) as you fill it in. > Anything you cannot answer yet is a finding, not a blank: write "UNKNOWN, owner ____, by ____" > rather than leaving it empty. A document full of honest unknowns is more useful to a board than > one full of confident guesses. > > Target length is 15 to 25 pages. Page counts per section are given below. > Source: https://rajatgautam.com/blog/ai-strategy-document-template/ --- ## 1. Executive Summary and Vision > 1 page. Audience: the board and C-suite. Write this section LAST. **Why AI, why now.** The specific business pressure or opportunity: **What this company looks like in 24 months if this works.** One paragraph: **Measurable outcomes.** 3 to 5. Each must have a number and a date. Not "improve efficiency". | # | Outcome | Baseline today | Target | By when | |---|---------|----------------|--------|---------| | 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | 3 | | | | | **Total investment requested:** ____________ **Payback expected by:** ____________ --- ## 2. Current State Assessment > 2 to 4 pages. Audience: technical leads and department heads. Be honest here or the rest is fiction. **Data readiness** | Data set | Where it lives | Quality (1-5) | Gaps | Owner | |----------|----------------|---------------|------|-------| | | | | | | **Technology infrastructure.** Current stack, compute access, integration capability: **Talent and skills** | Skill needed | Who has it today | Gap | Hire / train / outsource | |--------------|------------------|-----|--------------------------| | | | | | **Organizational culture.** How leadership and staff ACTUALLY feel about AI, not how you wish they felt. If you have not asked them, say so: --- ## 3. Use Case Portfolio > 4 to 8 pages. Audience: everyone. This is the section that decides whether the strategy is real. **All candidates.** Gathered by asking each department three questions: where is time lost, where do errors happen, where do customers hit friction. | # | Use case | Department | Business impact (1-5) | Feasibility (1-5) | |---|----------|------------|-----------------------|-------------------| | 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | 3 | | | | | > Plot these on a 2x2: impact on one axis, feasibility on the other. Your first three come from the > high-impact, high-feasibility quadrant and nowhere else. **Top use case profiles.** Repeat this block for your top 3 to 5 only. ### Use case: ______________________ - Problem, in the words of the person who has it: - Current process, step by step, with the time each step takes: - Proposed solution: - Data required, and whether we hold it: - Dependencies (systems, teams, vendors): - Risks, and what would make us stop: - Timeline: - **Named owner:** ______________________ --- ## 4. Technology and Architecture > 2 to 4 pages. Audience: the CTO and engineering. **Deployment model.** Cloud, on-premises, or hybrid, and the reason: **Build or buy, per use case** | Use case | Build or buy | Why | Rough cost | |----------|--------------|-----|------------| | | | | | **Models and platforms under evaluation, and why:** **Architecture diagram.** Data sources, processing layer, integration points, security boundaries. Paste it here. A hand-drawn photograph is fine; an absent diagram is not. --- ## 5. Governance and Ethics > 2 to 3 pages. Audience: legal, compliance, HR. **Decision rights** | Decision | Who approves | Who is consulted | Escalation | |----------|--------------|------------------|------------| | New AI use case | | | | | Deploy to production | | | | | Incident response | | | | **Review process before anything ships.** Privacy, bias testing, security, business impact: **Regulation that applies to us.** Data privacy law, industry rules, any AI-specific regulation in each jurisdiction we operate in: --- ## 6. Financial Model > 2 to 4 pages. Audience: the CFO and board. Present the CONSERVATIVE number. **One-time costs** | Item | Amount | Confidence | |------|--------|------------| | Infrastructure setup | | | | Data migration | | | | Licensing | | | | Training | | | | External help | | | **Ongoing annual costs** | Item | Amount | Confidence | |------|--------|------------| | Platform or API fees | | | | Cloud infrastructure | | | | Personnel | | | | Maintenance and retuning | | | **Return estimates, per use case** | Use case | Conservative | Expected | Optimistic | Basis for the number | |----------|--------------|----------|------------|----------------------| | | | | | | --- ## 7. Implementation Roadmap > 2 to 4 pages. Audience: project managers and every team. **Phases.** Foundation, first use case, scale, optimize. | Phase | Starts | Ends | What is true at the end | |-------|--------|------|-------------------------| | Foundation | | | | | First use case | | | | | Scale | | | | | Optimize | | | | **Milestones.** Every row needs all four columns filled or it is not a milestone. | Milestone | Date | Deliverable | Owner | Success criterion | |-----------|------|-------------|-------|-------------------| | | | | | | **Review cadence.** Who checks progress against these milestones, and how often: --- ## Before you circulate this, check - [ ] Every outcome in section 1 has a number and a date - [ ] Every use case in section 3 has a NAMED owner, not a department - [ ] Section 2 contains at least one uncomfortable truth. If it does not, it was not honest - [ ] The financial model presents the conservative number, not the optimistic one - [ ] Every milestone has a date, a deliverable, an owner and a success criterion - [ ] You have written "UNKNOWN" somewhere rather than guessing - [ ] Fewer than 6 use cases are in flight for year one Template from https://rajatgautam.com/blog/ai-strategy-document-template/ . Free to copy and adapt.