How we work

The firewall proposition

The fundamental design choice in AI Value Worx is the separation of capability from code.

We provide the capability: the proven specification package, the reference evidence base, the consultancy. Your team builds the code, inside your infrastructure, using your data.

This is not a compromise forced by practical constraints. It is a deliberate architectural decision. The most capable organisations are often the ones most constrained from letting third-party AI systems inside the firewall — extensive security policies, data residency requirements, institutional procurement processes. We remove that objection entirely.

The only data that passes between your organisation and ours is what you choose to share in the consultancy conversations.

This applies to the intelligence layer as much as to the system itself. Your AI Value Intelligence is not a window into our data — it is your data, your evidence base, your continuously maintained asset.

Specifications as the deliverable

What AI Value Worx delivers to your technical team is a complete specification package:

Module specifications
What each component does, what it takes as input, what it produces as output.
Governance-as-code specifications
Quality and safety constraints embedded in the implementation itself, not left to documentation and goodwill.
Unit test specifications
The exact criteria by which correct implementation is verified, including known test cases with expected outputs.
Data contracts
The interfaces between components, specifying data structures and quality requirements at each handoff.

These are the artefacts your team builds from. A consulting report has a half-life. A well-written specification does not.

Evidence as foundation

The AI Value Intelligence exists because advice without evidence is opinion.

Every recommendation in the Identify stage traces to a verified claim. Every mechanism explanation in the business case draws on analytical evidence. Every governance validation in the Commit stage is checked against the Governance domain before it reaches the board.

The evidence base is not a resource we provide access to. It is a deliverable you own. By the end of the engagement, your Intelligence Base reflects your sector, your functions, and the initiative types you are investing in. The Active Intelligence Builder keeps it current as the field evolves — without requiring your team to manage the process manually or maintaining any connection to our systems.

Who this is for

Three organisational profiles where this service works best.

Enterprise
Enterprise organisations face the sharpest version of the data governance problem: extensive security policies, data residency requirements, and institutional procurement processes that make it difficult to engage with conventional AI service providers. The firewall proposition removes the objection that blocks most AI advisory engagements before they begin. The governance-as-code specifications and the Governance domain provide the auditability that enterprise risk and compliance functions require.
Growth-focused mid-market
Growth-focused mid-market companies are at an inflection point: AI experimentation has produced some results, but the systematic capability to identify, commit to, and scale the initiatives that drive competitive advantage has not yet been built. The specification package gives a capable technical team the architecture they need without requiring deep AI specialisation. The self-maintaining Intelligence Base means capability continues to compound after the engagement ends.
VC-backed scale-ups
VC-backed scale-ups face investor pressure to demonstrate a credible AI strategy, combined with the time and resource constraints of a fast-growing organisation. The Discovery Sprint is well-suited here — defined scope, fixed fee, a grounded initiative shortlist that can be the foundation of a credible board narrative, delivered quickly enough to be useful at the pace a scale-up moves.

The engagement model

Discovery Sprint

Every engagement begins with a Discovery Sprint: one or two focused sprints with a fixed scope and fixed fee.

The sprint uses an externally-hosted reference prototype of the AI Value Worx system — running against our reference Intelligence Base — to run the first stages of the value realisation process with real organisational context.

The sprint delivers three things: a structured assessment of your organisation’s AI maturity; a first-pass initiative shortlist evidentially grounded in the reference corpus and calibrated to your organisational profile; and a grounded proposal for the full engagement — scoped to what the sprint revealed, not to a generic template.

The Discovery Sprint is designed to have standalone value. If the full engagement does not proceed, the AI maturity assessment and the initiative shortlist are useful outputs in their own right.

Customisation Retainer

The full engagement is a six-to-twelve month retainer running three workstreams in parallel:

Your technical team builds each module to the provided specifications, with Goal Atlas and weareCrank available for technical review and clarification throughout.

Mike and Peter deliver AI awareness and readiness consultancy inside your organisation, building the human capability to use, govern, and evolve the system.

The hosted reference prototype evolves in parallel — reflecting what has been learned about your context, and serving as a continuously updated reference point and training tool throughout the build.

The retainer concludes with defined deliverables: a fully customised, internally-hosted AI value realisation system; your own AI Value Intelligence — seeded, customised, and self-maintaining — running inside your infrastructure; an Active Intelligence Builder that keeps your evidence base current without external dependency; and an organisation equipped to run, govern, and extend the capability independently.

Get started

Every engagement begins with a conversation.

Mike Baxter — mike@goalatlas.com — Goal Atlas

Peter Abraham — peter@wearecrank.com — weareCrank

Request a Discovery Sprint →