- Revenue Creator
- Posts
- AI Reality Check
AI Reality Check
Are You Actually Ready?
The Brutal Truth: Assessing Your Real AI Readiness
We are proud to announce that this week’s newsletter is sponsored by Zoominfo, who provide a leading go-to-market intelligence platform that helps sales, marketing, and RevOps teams build pipeline and close deals faster.
Before crafting a vision, you must confront reality. Most organizations assess technology and skills. The leaders assess five dimensions that determine AI success:
Dimension 1: Data Reality (Not Data Aspirations)
Data has always been a challenge. Today, however, gather the information and data that you can access and start from there. Wells Fargo discovered that 83% of its "available" data required more than six months of engineering to become AI-ready.
Your assessment must categorize data:
Immediately accessible data (typically 15-20%)
Data requiring moderate preparation (30-40%)
Data that's theoretically available but practically inaccessible (40-55%)
This reality shapes what's possible in the short term and provides a long-term roadmap.
Dimension 2: Organizational Metabolism
Have you ever asked yourself or thought about how quickly your organization can actually change? Measure decision velocity: average time from AI idea to production deployment.
Industry average: 14 months
Leaders: 3 months
This isn't about risk tolerance; it's about organizational vision and execution. P&G increased its velocity from 18 to 4 months by eliminating stages, not by moving faster through them. Your vision must match your velocity or include plans to accelerate it.
The assessment paradox: organizations simultaneously overestimate their AI readiness and underestimate their AI technology and ability to execute.
Deutsche Bank discovered 47 employees with advanced AI skills scattered across operations, unaware of each other's existence. Your assessment must uncover:
Hidden AI initiatives delivering value
Employees with AI expertise (that you might not be aware of)
Existing systems that are AI-ready but unrecognized
These hidden assets can help accelerate vision achievement by an average of 30-40%.
Dimension 4: Competitive Reality Gaps
When evaluating the strategic aspects of an AI strategy, it is essential to consider capacity, time to development, and velocity. If competitors improve 40% annually, while you improve 20%, you're falling behind even as you advance.
Map three metrics:
Current capability gaps (where you stand)
Velocity gaps (how fast you're improving)
Investment efficiency gaps (ROI per dollar spent)
This reveals whether your vision should target parity, leadership, or differentiation.
Dimension 5: Cultural Readiness Quotient
Technology can change fast. For example, in quarters, your culture may take years to change.
Assess three factors:
Data-driven decision prevalence (what percentage of decisions use data?)
Experimentation tolerance (how many failed pilots are celebrated?)
Cross-functional collaboration intensity (how many AI initiatives involve 3+ departments?)
Organizations scoring below 40% on these factors require a cultural transformation before implementing technical changes.
The assessment paradox reveals that most organizations discover they're further behind than expected but have more hidden assets than realized. This dual reality—capability gaps alongside hidden strengths—shapes the strategic foundation for everything that follows.
Next week: How to craft a specific, measurable AI vision that drives real value using the 3-Horizon Architecture and Value Commitment Framework.
Dale Zwizinski, Editor of Revenue Creator, and Chief GTM Officer at Revenue Reimagined.
ZoomInfo: Act on Critical Moments, Instantly
Your ICP account hits pricing.
A new stakeholder joins the buying committee.
A competitor’s renewal hits 90 days.
If those moments don’t trigger action, they disappear.
ZoomInfo's GTM Intelligence makes them automatic—alerts, routing, enrichment, sequences, wired into the tools you already use.
One system that turns “we should jump on this” into “we already did.”
Featured RevGenius Events
Revgentic Roundtable: Oct 2, 12PM - 1PM ET: This roundtable brings together GTM leaders to address the critical decline in B2B sales rep performance. You'll learn the actionable playbooks and systems being used right now to boost productivity and hit revenue targets in a tough market. → Register Now (free)
GTM Hot Takes Ep 10: Oct 9, 11AM - 12PM ET
In-House SDRs: Asset or Liability?
The in-house SDR team was once a non-negotiable. Now, is it just an expensive liability? Join our debate pitting GTM veterans against outsourcing pros to find out. You'll learn about the hidden costs, how to protect your brand with an external team, and if outsourcing can truly scale for the enterprise.
Where do you stand? This debate will reshape your entire pipeline strategy.Sponsored by Seamless.AI → Register Now (free)
Xfactor Roundtable: Oct 21, 11AM - 12PM ET: They are bringing their GrowthAI operating system and ending the "guesswork era" in GTM by helping revenue teams use AI for better planning and execution. At the event, you can hear their keynote on GTM and AI, join a roundtable with top minds, and see how their system replaces static dashboards with a dynamic, unified approach. → Register now (free)
LandBase Hackathon, Oct 21, 1PM - 2PM ET: Join the Hackathon to build a complete, AI-powered GTM campaign in just 30 minutes and compete for the grand prize. What normally takes weeks and multiple tools, you'll accomplish in one seamless flow through a simple chat. →Register now (free)
GTM Hot Jobs
Creator DNA Drop
Most founders? They overbuild their stack way too early. 🔥
One founder asked in Slack how to set up a GTM stack under $750/month. Already running Instantly, eyeing LinkedIn + trigger tools and debating CRMs.
The community takeaways:
→Don’t get fancy. If deliverability sucks, nothing else matters. Nail that first.
→One tool vs. ten. All-in-one platforms can cut down costs and headaches vs. stitching six tools together.
→Clay’s a monster. Powerful for enrichment and scoring, but $350/month is a big bite when you’re early.
→ICP = AEs. If they live on LinkedIn, double down there before layering email.
Bottom line
Don’t blow up your stack before you even have motion. Start scrappy. Keep it lean. Scale later.
Stack FOMO is real. Focus > features. 🎯
Want to get your brand in front of 55,000+ revenue leaders?
Partner with us and put your name at the center of the conversation.
Drop us a line: email Jared Robin. Let's build something big.
Was this email forwarded or want to share?