The Wish List Isn't a Roadmap
Every board meeting this year includes an AI conversation. Most conclude with a list of projects: automate customer service, build a predictive model for churn, deploy an LLM to your intranet, integrate generative AI into product. It feels decisive. It isn't.
A wish list is not a strategy. It's a collection of things you've heard work elsewhere, without the business logic that ties each one to revenue, cost reduction, or defensible competitive advantage. When you fund all of them equally, or worse, when you pick the loudest voice in the room, you end up burning cash on initiatives that land nowhere.
The hard truth: 60% of enterprise AI pilots never ship. Another 30% that do ship don't move the needle on the metrics that matter. That waste happens because nobody mapped the work before the commitment.
What a Real AI/ML Strategy Consultation Does
Strategic consulting at Modulus isn't theoretical. We build a framework specific to your business, your data, and your 12-month window. We answer three questions that separate winning AI initiatives from expensive experiments:
Which AI initiatives move revenue or cut cost measurably in the next 12 months? Not in five years. Not "eventually." Now. We model the ROI for each candidate project and rank them.
What data and infrastructure does each initiative require? And do you have it? If not, what does it cost to build or buy, and does that change the ROI math?
How do you sequence the work so early wins fund later complexity? We map dependencies, skills gaps, and budget allocation so your first quarter delivers proof of concept, your second and third quarters scale what works.
The output is a roadmap. Not a PowerPoint. A working document that your engineering, product, and finance teams can execute against immediately.
Why C-Suite Teams Choose This Approach
Accountability over hope
When you walk into a vendor pitch, you hear possibilities. When you commission a strategy consultation, you get constraints and trade-offs. We tell you what will work, what won't, and why. That clarity lets you say no to expensive ideas that sound good in principle but won't move your business in 12 months.
The best AI strategy is not "do more AI." It's "do the three things that move revenue, and do them well."
Budget allocation gets defensible
Your CFO will ask: Why this project first? Why allocate $2M here and $500K there? A strategy consultation gives you the answer. We show the math. Early wins build credibility with the board. Late-stage complexity builds on earlier infrastructure. Everything connects.
Execution de-risks
We work backward from your 12-month target. That means we identify skill gaps early, flag data quality issues before they derail a project, and surface integration risks when there's still time to plan around them. Your team spends the next quarter executing, not discovering problems that could have been mapped in week one.
What Success Looks Like in the First 30 Days
By the end of week one, you have a prioritized list of AI initiatives ranked by impact and feasibility. By the end of week two, you have a resource and budget allocation plan tied to each initiative. By the end of the first month, you have a quarterly milestone roadmap with clear success metrics and a Go/No-Go decision framework for each phase.
Your team starts building in month two. By month four, you have proof of concept on your highest-impact initiative. By month nine, you have two scaled initiatives driving measurable revenue or cost reduction. By month twelve, you're planning year two on a foundation of actual results, not hypotheticals.
Work with us on this
AI/ML Strategy Consultation at Modulus is built for C-suite teams that have already decided AI is part of their next 12 months, but haven't locked in what AI actually means for their business. We work with your exec team, your product leaders, and your technical stakeholders to map the roadmap. No jargon. No templates. Custom work tied to your revenue model and your constraints.
We're a fit if you have between $1M and $50M to deploy into AI in the next 12 months, a technical team ready to execute, and the honesty to prioritize what will move the needle over what sounds impressive in board meetings. We're not a fit if you want validation that all your ideas are great—we'll tell you which ones are, and which ones aren't.
The first conversation is free. We'll assess your current AI initiatives, identify the biggest misalignment between your list and your business goals, and tell you whether a formal strategy engagement makes sense. Ready to move from wish lists to roadmaps? Book a consultation on AI/ML Strategy with our team, or email us to start the conversation.
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Originally published on the Modulus1 insights blog. Browse more analysis on AI, SEO, and automation.
