00 A fixed-scope AI diagnostic for leaders who want a straight answer · India

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

A two-to-three week diagnostic that tells you plainly what is worth building, what will quietly fail in production, and what it takes to govern. It runs on your systems, and it is run 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 MathewEngineering leadership · Google, Amazon, Walmart
Engineering and leadership experience
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 have run pilots. Maybe several. They demo well and then sit there. They never quite reach production, and they never quite get cancelled. Meanwhile AI spreads through the organisation one unapproved tool at a time. Your CTO is already at capacity. 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 is that nobody has stepped back, looked at the whole picture, 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 own ground.

This is 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 are ready. Where you are 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 areas: data, governance, talent, infrastructure, and security. It shows where you stand, and where the sharp drops 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. You get 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 named owners and approval gates.

// 06

Board-ready readout

A session and a document your leadership can act on, written for executives rather than 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-versus-buy calls, 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 in insurance, banking, healthcare or 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 an honest read on a portfolio company's AI position.
✕ Not a fit if you
  • Want someone to approve a decision you have already made.
  • Need someone to write code this week. This is the layer above delivery.
  • Are not prepared to give straight answers in the interviews. The map is only as honest as what goes into it.
06 Who runs it

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

Frame
Clarify the decision
Test
Examine the evidence
Bound
Make risk explicit
Plan
Name the next action
Sunil Mathew
Sunil Mathew · Bengaluru, India

I'm Sunil Mathew. I have spent 26 years building and leading engineering at Google, Amazon, and Walmart, and at startups. Today I lead agentic-AI work: multi-agent orchestration, RAG, evals, LLM-Ops. I am also 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 as a 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 are available. Pricing is indicative, and 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 costs many times this. Most of that goes on layers of staff, 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. That is me, and I have 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 have spent a year on 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.

Book a scope call

Thirty minutes. We walk through your systems at a high level, and I tell you what an AI Readiness Assessment would cover for you.

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