Do you care if a company has deployed AI in a meaningful way?

I've had a long career in software sales and one of our discovery tools was called a "maturity model". It was a method for us to determine the current status of a client in relation to their position along continuum of adoption. Our assessment would determine whether they were on the low end of the spectrum in terms of adopting best practices (novice practitioners) or on the top end (expert practitioners). Finding the ideal customer was easier once we determined where they were and how far they had come in adopting or deploying a particular technology and addressing the underlying strategic objectives.

In a similar vein, as an investor, are you beginning to assess potential acquisition targets in relation to their AI maturity? Do you see a time coming when your due diligence would include exploring how successfully a company has deployed AI?

As a business broker, are you beginning to raise awareness among your clients that AI preparedness has the potential increase the value of their business?

The technology is moving at a blinding speed and the race is on to deploy AI effectively in the SMB sector. What is the view in this community in terms of how you are preparing to advise clients on this topic? Do you see opportunities to extract latent value from businesses that have yet to explore the potential AI enhancements?

See "Community Question" (poll) under Discussions: When you think about the rapidly expanding capabilities of AI to transform a business, how important do you think it is for companies you are pursuing (or helping to prepare for a sale) to have deployed AI in a meaningful way? A. It's early days and it's not a factor for me B. There's a high level of interest but a dearth of practitioners C. I'm seeing benefits from AI and starting to include AI maturity as a criteria D. A company that is not fully on-board with deploying AI is not worth my time