The AI Maturity Matrix.

Five levels of AI maturity, read across six dimensions, each level building on the one before. Grounded in our primary research into how companies actually adopt AI.

The five levels of AI adoption.

Level 0

Wild West

Where everyone starts: energy everywhere, ownership still forming.

SignalsA curious few experiment, and clever work appears in pockets.

ToolsA scattered mix of company and personal tools, chosen person by person.

AutonomyChat, mostly. Occasional sparks, no automation yet.

Next step upAn owner: one person who turns sparks into progress.

Level 1

Prioritized

AI has an owner and real goals.

SignalsEarly adopters emerge, and the first power users appear.

ToolsA sanctioned tool list forms; prompts travel person to person.

AutonomyMostly prompting at solo scale, with the first repeatable workflows.

Next step upA funded plan behind the goals.

Level 2

Adopted

A funded plan is working: most people use AI most days.

SignalsPower users pull ahead, and shared skills start to accumulate.

ToolsAn official skill list appears, often a spreadsheet, and grows fast.

AutonomySkills and the first sub-agents; power users pick their own models.

Next step upA dedicated team to run AI as an operation.

Level 3

Operationalized

A dedicated AI ops team runs skills as products.

SignalsPower users multiply, and governance has real teeth.

ToolsCentral tools spread the best practice to every team.

AutonomyAgents run real workflows, with central review behind them.

Next step upWiring every function.

Level 4

Instrumented

AI is wired into the org itself. AI engineers sit inside functions.

SignalsEveryone is a power user; the work can't be done without AI.

ToolsBest practice is built into the rails and improved by the system itself.

AutonomyRoutines run on their own; people direct, review, and decide.

At the topThe system keeps learning.

Place yourself on the matrix.

Four diagnostic questions, all about how you manage ownership. Answer them in order about your own company: every yes is a step up.

Question 1

Owner

Does someone own AI adoption today? A yes is Level 1 or above.

Question 2

Plan

Is there a funded plan behind the goals? A yes reaches Level 2.

Question 3

Team

Is a dedicated AI ops team in place? A yes reaches Level 3.

Question 4

Wiring

Has that team wired the whole org? A yes is Level 4.

The full matrix: six dimensions, ownership first.

In our research, ownership is what enables the rest: the other five dimensions build on it, and they are the same ones the AI-Use Score measures.

Dimension	L0 · Wild West	L1 · Prioritized	L2 · Adopted	L3 · Operationalized	L4 · Instrumented
OwnershipDefines the level	Personal energy, personal tools	An owner, with real goals	An owner and a funded plan	A dedicated AI ops team	The team has wired the org
Adoptionusers → power users → AI-native	A curious few, or a whole team following a department head's lead	Early adopters, first power users	Most people, most days, in pockets that don't talk to each other	Power users multiply	Everyone's a power user: the work can't be done without AI
Sophisticationprompts → tools → agents	Occasional sparks	Mostly basic, at solo scale	Power users pull ahead: skills, sub-agents, model choice	Central tools spread power-user practice	Best practice built into the rails
Efficiencywho manages cost	Too small to matter, until the seat cap forces an upgrade someone notices	The bill sometimes surprises finance	Power users self-manage cost	Cost dashboards from the central team	Managed automatically: routing, model choice
Reusewhere shared work lives	Individual know-how	Personal libraries, shared person to person	An official skill list, often a spreadsheet	Skills as products, centrally owned	Offered automatically, self-improving
Governancehow policy is enforced	Habits, not yet rules	A tool list, not a policy	A written policy, self-enforced	Central review, after the fact	Preventive: caught before it happens

Real companies are uneven. The cells describe what we most often observe at each level, not a template your business must match.

Why we drew the matrix

Mike Redbord

Co-Founder · August 2026

This page is the framework. It came out of primary research: conversations with more than 100 companies about who owns AI, what the plan is, who runs it, and how far it has spread. We expected those answers to sort companies by sophistication, and they sorted them by ownership instead.

An owner with a mediocre toolset keeps making progress. Brilliant individual work with nobody accountable for it stays where it is, and it retires with whoever did it. The five levels above come from that one finding.

The calls behind it, the patterns we heard often enough to write down, and the two agents that draft the revisions are in the post: A Lot of Calls Later: The AI Maturity Matrix.

If your company reads differently than the matrix predicts, I'd like to hear about it at [email protected]: that's how the levels got their shape in the first place.

Mike

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