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AI MATURITY MODEL

Improving's AI Maturity Model

See where your organization is on its AI journey, what's holding it back, and what it takes to move to the next stage with our practical 8-stage AI maturity model.

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250+

AI Projects Delivered

$4.4B

ROI Generated for AI Clients

400+

Improvers in our AI practice

100+

AI Certified Experts

STRUCTURED MATURITY MODEL FOR EVERY AI ENGAGEMENT

AI Fails When Organizations Skip Stages

The models work. What's missing is the governance, workflow, and trust layers between a pilot and full agentic use; and most failures trace back to skipping straight from one to the other.

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DEFINITION

Improving's AI Maturity Model is an 8-stage framework, organized into 3 waves: Tools, Process, and Agentic Operations, mapping the path from zero AI usage to full agentic operations, built from Improving's delivery work across Fortune 500 engagements.

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WAVE 1

Tools

STAGES 1-2

Individuals moving from zero AI to off-the-shelf AI tools, one prompt at a time. Humans approve every action, and nothing yet compounds across the team.

WAVE 2

Process

STAGES 3-4

AI moves from single tasks to full workflows. This is where most organizations stall, because governance stops being optional and starts being imperative.

WAVE 3

Agentic Operations

STAGES 5-8

Agents execute autonomously, coordinate in parallel, and run against defined outcomes. This is where organizations stop managing AI and start operating with it.

THE 8 STAGES

Each Stage Is a Specific, Observable Shift in Trust

What AI is trusted to do, and how much oversight surrounds it, changes at every stage. Expand any stage below for the detail.

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Where You Are Right Now

Which of these sounds like you?

WAVE 1

Still in Wave 1?

Your team is running five different AI tools with five different opinions about what "good" looks like.

WAVE 2

Stuck in Wave 2?

Your pilot worked in isolation and fell apart the moment it touched a real workflow.

WAVE 3

Stranded in Wave 3?

Agents are running in production. Nobody agreed on what "agentic" requires before they went live, and now nobody owns the fallout.

FOR THE SKEPTICS

Our Practitioners Teach What They Build - Watch Them Do It

Every session is led by an Improving practitioner, the same people delivering AI engagements for enterprise clients. Deep technical content, real delivery experience, open to everyone.

MARCH 12, 2026
Building Trust at Scale for Growth and AI: What to Do First, Next, and Later in Data Governance

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Preston Mesarvey

Technical Director

FEBRUARY 27, 2026
Governance That Actually Works: How Well-Designed AI Systems Make Responsibility Visible

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Devlin Liles

Chief AI Officer

JANUARY 30, 2026
Define the Need, Solve the Problem: An AI-First Playbook for Developers

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Claudio Lassala

Technical Director

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Talk to the People Behind Improving's AI Maturity Model

Tell us where you are, and we'll tell you exactly how we can help.

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AI PRACTICE LEADS

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Devlin Liles

Chief AI Officer & CCO

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David O'Hara

Regional Director

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Tim Rayburn

VP of Consulting