Why run a domain audit before deploying AI, and when to skip it

Should you audit before acting? The honest answer: sometimes. A well-run audit avoids getting the priority wrong; a pointless audit delays an obvious gain. Here is how to tell the two situations apart, and which audit to choose.

What a domain audit brings

It covers one business domain (at least two processes that share the same rules, the same vocabulary and the same manager) and the rules that govern them: the written ones, and the ones everybody applies without ever having written them down. Three stages, each with its deliverable:

1. The current state (how work is really done, with which tools, which data, which constraints): a written summary for deciding, a map of your tools and of what is still done by hand, an inventory of your data, and one of your business rules, with their exceptions, their contradictions and who decides.
2. Prioritisation: your processes ranked by value and feasibility, a quantified study of the processes selected (gains, costs, return on investment) and a reasoned recommendation on which one to start with.
3. The roadmap: a dated, budgeted plan, with indicators and a decision point at each stage, and the funding that can be mobilised.

The audit is done on the ground: with the business leader, and with the people who actually do the work, in front of their tools.

When to choose a domain audit

• A whole business domain is at stake: before handing the whole of customer service or the whole of purchasing over to Business Agents, the audit is required. The agents will rely on the rules it has brought to light.
• Several processes are competing, and you want to choose on figures.
• The diagnostic was not enough to determine what to do, or in what order.
• You need to convince partners, a board, a funder: a quantified roadmap serves as a basis for decision.
• A funding scheme can finance the approach.

It also prepares a business domain of the Company Brain, if you choose to build one.

A complex process: the Process Audit

When the need comes down to one or two independent processes, complex because of their rules, their special cases or their data, or when you want to understand before committing, the Process Audit is enough. It examines the process in depth: how it really runs, what handing it over to an agent would bring you, a scoping ready to build from and your quote for the Process Agent.

When to skip it

• A clear process (three to six tasks, known rules): the free Flash Diagnostic is enough to get a quote for a Process Agent. If the difficulty lies only in the connections (a tool without a documented connection, files exchanged by hand), we check it during the diagnostic, without an audit.
• A simple task, whose gain is obvious: a Task Automation will prove it faster than an audit.

An audit informs a decision; it should not delay it without reason.

What a good audit should contain

• figures measured in your company, not market averages;
• a single recommendation, reasoned, not a catalogue of options;
• follow-up indicators defined before any deployment, with their starting point;
• the possibility of concluding that nothing should be done, or that an off-the-shelf tool is enough;
• a file that belongs to you, usable with any provider.

Our two audits

	Process Audit	Domain Audit
For	one or two complex processes, before a Process Agent	one business domain, before Business Agents or its inclusion in the Company Brain
Price	€1,900 excl. VAT for one process, + €890 excl. VAT per extra process, up to 2	€3,900 excl. VAT for two processes in the same business domain and their rules, + €890 excl. VAT per extra process
Lead time	1 to 2 weeks	2 to 4 weeks, depending on the number of processes; beyond 5 processes, timeframe set out in the proposal
Included	the current state of the process, its gains and costs quantified, a scoping ready to build from, your quote for the Process Agent	the three stages, the inventory of business rules, and preparing the public funding application when a scheme can fund the project

A process of more than six tasks counts as two, for the audit as for the build.

The details: Process Audit and Domain Audit. For the method of calculating gains: How to calculate the return on investment of an AI agent.