Sunil Mathew AI Readiness
00 A fixed-scope AI diagnostic for leaders who are done with theatre · India

Know where your AI breaks — before you bet the roadmap on it.

A two-to-three week diagnostic that tells you, plainly, what's worth building, what will quietly fail in production, and what it takes to govern. Run on your systems — by someone who shipped agentic AI at Google, Amazon, and Walmart, and is building it now.

Request a scope call → See what you get

Fixed fee · fixed scope · board-ready output in three weeks

Sunil Mathew
Sunil Mathew26 years · ex-Google, Amazon, Walmart
26 years, shipped at
01 Why most AI programmes stall

They don't fail in the model. They fail in the room where no one owns the decision.

You've run pilots. Maybe several. They demo well and then sit there — never quite production, never quite killed. Meanwhile AI is sprawling through the org one unsanctioned tool at a time, your CTO is already underwater, and the board is asking a question nobody can answer cleanly: what is our actual AI plan, and what is it costing us?

The gap is almost never technical. It's that no one has stepped back, looked at the whole board, and made the calls — which use cases are real, which data is trustworthy, what governance the regulator will expect, and what you should refuse to build at all.

That's what this is for.

02 What the assessment is

Not a generic best-practices deck. A map of your terrain.

A fixed-fee, fixed-scope diagnostic of your specific systems, data, and ambitions. In two to three weeks I go deep enough to tell you the truth — where you're ready, where you're exposed, and the shortest credible path from where you are to AI that ships and holds up.

You walk away with a decision-ready plan, not a reading list.

03 The deliverables

Everything you need to fund, sequence, and defend an AI plan.

// 01

AI Readiness Scorecard

An honest read across five dimensions — data, governance, talent, infrastructure, and security. Where you stand, where the cliffs are.

// 02

Prioritised use-case portfolio

Your opportunities sequenced by business impact × implementation readiness, so you fund the few that matter and park the rest.

// 03

Build-vs-buy calls

For each priority use case — what to build, what to buy, and what to wait on — with the reasoning, not just the verdict.

// 04

Governance & compliance posture

Mapped to India's DPDP Act and your sector regulator (IRDAI, RBI, SEBI), with global frameworks (NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, EU AI Act) where you have cross-border exposure.

// 05

90-day production roadmap

The specific path to get your first one or two use cases into governed production — with owners and gates.

// 06

Board-ready readout

A session and a document your leadership can act on — written for executives, not engineers.

04 How it runs

Three weeks. Light on your team. Heavy on judgment.

Week 1Discovery

Discovery

Structured interviews with your leaders and builders, plus a hands-on review of your systems, data, and current AI efforts.

Week 2Analysis

Analysis

Use-case mapping, build-vs-buy, and a governance and risk read against your regulatory reality.

Week 3Readout

Roadmap & readout

The 90-day plan, the scorecard, and a live executive session to walk it through and pressure-test it together.

Roughly 6–10 stakeholder interviews. Your team's time commitment stays small by design — the depth is my job, not theirs.

05 Who this is for

An honest fit, or not at all.

✓ A fit if you're
  • Mid-market or a regulated enterprise — insurance, banking, healthcare, financial services — with real AI ambition and real compliance stakes.
  • A funded startup (Series A–C) that needs governance and sequencing before pouring capital into the wrong build.
  • A PE firm wanting a clear-eyed read on a portfolio company's AI position.
✕ Not a fit if you
  • Want someone to rubber-stamp a decision you've already made.
  • Need a body to write code this week — this is the layer above delivery.
  • Aren't prepared to give straight answers in the interviews. The map is only as honest as the inputs.
06 Who runs it

Twenty-six years deciding where systems break — and living with the answer.

26+
Years building software
3
Fortune-100s · Google, Amazon, Walmart
100M+
Users served by systems built
150
Engineers led across geographies
Sunil Mathew
Sunil Mathew · Bengaluru, India

I'm Sunil Mathew. I've spent 26 years building and leading engineering at Google, Amazon, and Walmart — on systems serving up to 100M+ users — and I lead agentic-AI work today: multi-agent orchestration, RAG, evals, LLM-Ops. I'm currently building an agentic-AI product of my own, so what I tell you is current, not a memory from a past role.

"I've also spent that career deciding what not to build. That's most of what this assessment is."

More about the work — Fractional CAIO →

— Sunil Mathew
07 The investment

Priced as a decision, not a project.

Fixed fee · fixed scope
₹4,50,000
Founding rate: ₹3,50,000 for the first three engagements.
  • Two-to-three week diagnostic, run on your systems
  • Readiness scorecard across five dimensions
  • Prioritised use-case portfolio & build-vs-buy calls
  • Governance posture mapped to your regulator
  • 90-day production roadmap, owned by you
  • Live board-ready executive readout

Proceed to a fractional CAIO engagement within 60 days and the full assessment fee is credited toward your first month.

Request a scope call →

Payment plans available. Pricing is indicative — confirmed on the scope call.

08 Before you book

Questions leaders ask.

How is this different from a consulting firm's AI assessment?+

A Big Four engagement of comparable scope runs many times this, most of it spent on hierarchy and utilisation — and you often meet the senior name once. Here, the person who interviews your team, reads your systems, and writes the roadmap is the same person — me — and I've carried these decisions in production, not just in slides.

We've barely started with AI. Is it too early?+

No — earlier is cheaper. The assessment is most valuable before you've sunk a year into the wrong build or let ungoverned tools spread.

What do you need from us?+

Access to the right people for honest conversations, a look at your relevant systems and data, and a decision-maker in the room for the readout.

What happens after?+

You own the roadmap outright — run it yourself, hand it to your team, or bring me back as a fractional Chief AI Officer to drive it into production.

09 The first step

Three weeks from now you could stop guessing.

Request a scope call. I read every enquiry myself and reply by email.

Prefer email? Write to me directly →