DIY Company AI Audit: Founder's One-Evening Checklist

Founders often feel their teams are stuck in repetitive tasks that eat up time, yet figuring out what to automate without external consultants feels overwhelming. A DIY company AI audit lets you, in just one evening, get a clear picture of routine work, spot tasks ready for AI agents, and build an action plan. These simple steps lay the groundwork for smooth AI adoption later — without costly consulting.

How to Prepare for a One-Evening AI Audit

Start with a simple list of departments and key roles. You don't need a complex org chart — just the department name and core responsibilities for each role. Capture this in a table or even a plain document.

Then, for each role, note five typical actions performed daily or weekly. Think: sending emails, entering data into spreadsheets, preparing reports, calling clients, etc. Focus on operations that require no creative judgment and repeat identically.

Next step: time estimation. Ask each employee to log how many minutes they spend per week on each listed action. If gathering data from everyone isn't possible, estimate using averages or your own judgment — this yields sufficient accuracy for a first audit.

AI Audit Steps: Checklist

Below is a checklist you can complete in one evening. Tick ✅ after each item.

1. ✅ List departments and roles (e.g., sales, support, manufacturing, accounting).
2. ✅ For each role, record five typical routine actions.
3. ✅ Estimate average weekly time per action (in minutes).
4. ✅ Calculate total weekly time spent on routine per department (multiply headcount by average time).
5. ✅ Sort actions by descending time spent — this shows what's consuming the most resources.
6. ✅ Pick the three most time-consuming actions that can be expressed as a clear scenario (e.g., "generating a commercial proposal from a template and client data").
7. ✅ Verify data availability for the chosen scenarios (are they in CRM, spreadsheets, or email inboxes?).
8. ✅ Define the automation goal: reduce time by X hours per week or cut error count.
9. ✅ Plan the next step — team discussion and selecting a tool or platform for your first prototype.

Definition: An AI audit is a rapid review of repetitive company operations aimed at identifying opportunities to hand them off to AI agents.

Definition: Routine — actions performed via a fixed algorithm without need for creative decision-making.

Definition: Automation scenario — a sequence of steps an agent must execute to replace manual work (e.g., get data → process → create document → send).

How This Works on Our Side

How this works on our side: Corporate program format — four live 2-hour sessions over two weeks plus a recorded video course for each participant. The program includes two groups of up to 20 employees each at one fixed company price. Outcome — at least three working automations on tasks the company itself prioritized (typically yields 3–5), backed by a money-back guarantee. https://course.aiadvisoryboard.me/corporate?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=article_body&utm_campaign=corporate

FAQ

Do I need technical skills to run the audit? No. You only need access to a task list and the ability to estimate time spent on execution. The technical side comes later, when you move to building automation.

Is one evening enough to get a useful result? Yes. The audit's goal isn't a perfect model — it's fast identification of the costliest routines. With this data, you can pinpoint the first three automation tasks, which usually deliver an obvious impact.

What if our company handles sensitive data — how do we audit without leak risk? Use test or anonymized data when describing scenarios. If extra protection is needed, have participants sign an NDA — standard practice that doesn't affect the time estimation itself.

Conclusion

A one-evening AI audit gives you a clear view of where your company's most valuable time is drained — and lets you move straight to action. Start with a list of roles and routines, time them, pick the three highest-impact tasks, and prep scenarios for your first automation.

Tomorrow block 30 minutes to fill out the checklist for one department — this is your first concrete step toward running your own AI audit.