AI Readiness Index (AIRI) is an industry-focused AI readiness assessment framework first developed by AI Singapore (AISG). Versions 1.0 and 2.0 (2019–2025) crystallised and distilled the critical success factors for AI adoption based on hundreds of engagements AISG has had with companies across different industries, sizes, and AI readiness.
The framework has since graduated to an openly licensed standard. Its current version — AIRI v3.1, The AI Readiness Framework — is maintained independently at airi.foundation and released under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0.
Based on AIRI v2.0. The current version of the framework (v3.1) is available at airi.foundation.
Assess. Identify. Accelerate
AIRI allows business units and organisations to assess their AI readiness and identify the gap between their current and desired state. It enables organisations to understand their suitable approaches to adopt AI and implement targeted programmes to increase AI readiness.
Ultimately, AIRI translates abstract concepts into concrete actions to help organisations accelerate their AI adoptions.
AI Singapore uses AIRI to help our companies identify which of our programmes (and our collaborator’s programmes) can be leveraged to accelerate their AI journey.
For Organisations
oAIRI
Organisational AI Readiness Index
Measures your organisation’s AI readiness across leadership, culture, governance, data readiness, and infrastructure. Used by governments, industry associations, and enterprises to benchmark capability and target interventions.
20 minutes · 15 questions · Free
For Individuals
pAIRI
Personal AI Readiness Index
Measures your individual AI readiness across mindset, ethics awareness, value creation, data literacy, and tools. The same proven framework, now applied to the individual. pAIRI scores feed directly into your organisation’s oAIRI scores.
20 minutes · 15 questions · Free
The Five Levels of AI Readiness (v3.1)
AIRI v3.1 assesses organisations on a 0–5 scale across five readiness levels. Not every organisation needs to reach the highest level — AI Ready (Level 2) is the recommended target for most organisations.
L0
AI Unaware
0.00 – 0.99
Bystander
L1
AI Aware
1.00 – 1.99
Explorer
L2
AI Ready
2.00 – 2.99
Practitioner
★ Recommended target
L3
AI Competent
3.00 – 3.99
Builder
L4
AI Catalyst
4.00 – 5.00
Pioneer
Full level descriptors, behavioural anchors, and interpretation guidance are published at airi.foundation.
Targeted Intervention Based on AIRI
| AI Unaware | AI Aware | AI Ready | AI Competent | AI Catalyst | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advisory and Roadmaps | AI Advisory Programmes: Discovery Workshops, AI Ready Clinics for Leaders | ||||||||
| Skills and Training | AI For Everyone (AI4E), Data Analytics For Everyone | ||||||||
| LearnAI: AI For Industry (AI4I), AIAP Field Guide | |||||||||
| AI Certification | |||||||||
| Capabilities | AI Apprenticeship Programme (AIAP), LLM Application Developer Programme (LADP) | ||||||||
| Innovation | 100Experiments (100E) | ||||||||
| Data and Tools | SEA-LION | AI Apprenticeship Programme (AIAP), LLM Application Developer Programme (LADP) | |||||||
Companies keen to collaborate with AI Singapore and list their programmes according to AIRI, please contact us.
5 Pillars and 15 Dimensions of AIRI
AIRI v3.1 consists of five pillars, which map to fifteen dimensions. The five pillars are interdependent and synergistic, and together provide a holistic assessment of an organisation’s readiness to adopt AI. Each dimension is assessed at five levels, from AI Unaware (L0) to AI Catalyst (L4).
P1
Leadership & Culture
5 dimensions
P2
Ethics & Governance
3 dimensions
P3
Business Value
2 dimensions
P4
Data Foundation
2 dimensions
P5
Infrastructure & Standards
3 dimensions
The full dimension-by-dimension specification — what each dimension assesses and the behavioural anchors at every level — is published at airi.foundation, where the framework can also be downloaded (CC BY 4.0).
AIRI Insights
It is a common misconception that AI adoption is only suitable for larger or technology-based organisations. On the contrary, smaller AI Unaware and AI Aware organisations, even if they lack data, talent, or ML infrastructure, could adopt ready-made AI solutions for their core or peripheral business activities.
Organisations should assess if their current AI capabilities support their organisational objectives. If there is a mismatch, organisations could refer to their organisational capabilities’ profiles as a high-level guide on specific areas to target and improve.
An important point to note is that not every organisation needs to reach AI Competent.
The ideal AI readiness is dependent on the organisational objectives.
Nonetheless, given the pervasiveness of AI technology, organisations should minimally aspire to be AI Aware. This enables them to identify better use cases for AI, procure relevant AI solutions, and be savvy consumers of AI.
1. Unaware2Aware
Beyond increasing organisational AI literacy, the organisation sets a budget for its first AI project and identifies AI champions to onboard their first AI use case using off-the-shelf AI products and solutions.
3. Ready2Competent
The organisation expands its AI project team to a full-fledged AI Engineering team that can undertake and implement multiple AI projects internally.
5. AI Catalyst
AI Catalyst organisations go beyond meeting their own needs to shape the AI ecosystem around them — setting standards, sharing tools and expertise, and helping other organisations advance their own AI readiness.
2. Aware2Ready
The organisation assembles an AI project team that can work with stakeholders to identify a good AI use case for the business and implement the solution, possibly with an external trusted AI solution provider.
4. AI Competent
AI Competent organisations typically can develop customised solutions for unique business needs when none are available in the market. They are only limited by their imaginations, data, and resources on the type of AI solutions they could develop.
Approaches to Improving AI Readiness
Below are some suggested approaches for organisations to benefit from the AIRI assessment and improve their AI readiness:
Determine whether current AI capability supports organisational goals
AI, similar to other technologies, is a tool that could help organisations increase their competitiveness via higher automation (cost-saving), better product offerings (revenue), or deeper analytics capabilities (insights).
Organisational goals serve as the north star for technology adoption; adopting AI without a clear direction and purpose will bring disappointing results. Organisations should work backwards from their goals to identify areas where AI could add exponential value before investing further.
Once the potential areas of AI applications are identified, organisations could decide whether the use cases justify hiring a team of AI Engineers to develop customised solutions. Not every use case requires customised solutions; organisations, especially AI Unaware and AI Aware, should first look at commercially available solutions before developing their own in-house.
For instance, a law firm could procure a commercially available chatbot solution to support its customer service activities. Such an approach is quicker, has lower risk, and will let the organisation gain experience using AI applications.
Organisations should also consider whether a specific AI application is a core competitive advantage. If the law firm believes AI-powered case review is a core advantage, or none is available in the market, there is greater incentive to build it in-house.
Identify which level of AI capabilities the organisation needs to be at
Refer to the interpretation of AIRI results to understand the level you need. Generally, organisations adopting commercially available solutions could be AI Unaware or AI Aware; those integrating AI features such as cloud AI services into their products should be AI Ready; and those developing customised AI solutions should be at AI Competent level.
Focus on the weakest dimension first
Organisations improving their AI readiness should focus first on their weakest dimension based on their Organisation Capability Profile. The dimensions have synergistic effects and can only be unlocked with capabilities across all of them. Where dimensions tie on score, prioritise Leadership & Culture, then Ethics & Governance, Business Value, Data Foundation, and finally Infrastructure & Standards.
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Based on AIRI v2.0. The current version of the framework (v3.1) is available at airi.foundation.
Host AIRI for Your Own Ecosystem
The AI Readiness Framework is an open standard released under CC BY 4.0 — any organisation may adopt, adapt, and self-host it with attribution.
Organisations that prefer a ready-made deployment can use airihub.io, which hosts private, branded AIRI (v3.1) assessment sites. airihub.io is independently maintained and is not an AI Singapore service.
Host AIRI at airihub.io → · Read the framework at airi.foundation →
The AI Readiness Index (AIRI) versions 1.0 and 2.0 are licensed under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Supported by the National Research Foundation and hosted by the National University of Singapore. The framework’s current version (v3.1) is maintained at airi.foundation.
