Discovery · Perth
Find out what's actually true before you spend.
An AI strategy is only as good as its picture of the business. Audits and public research answer what is visible from the outside; some questions only get answered by asking the people inside. We run structured interviews, AI-conducted or in person, focus groups, and surveys, and read them together, so the strategy addresses what is actually happening, not what everyone assumes.
Start with a conversationThe problem
Most AI strategies are built on assumption
A strategy usually starts from what leadership believes is happening: who would use AI, where the time goes, what the team thinks of the last change. Those beliefs are sometimes right. When they are wrong, the strategy reads as complete and fails anyway, because a tool got rolled out to answer a question nobody actually asked the people doing the work.
Two of the most important facts in any AI rollout live inside the business and nowhere else: who is already pulled toward AI (rarely the most senior person in the room), and whether a change has actually taken hold or has been quietly shelved. Neither shows up in a website audit or a market scan. You find them by asking, in a structured way, and reading the answers together.
What we run
Four instruments, one picture
Each answers a different question. Most engagements need one or two, not all four, and the scope comes out of the first conversation.
Structured interviews, AI-conducted
Scoped after a conversationA voice or chat interview that leadership and staff complete on their own time, one to one, no interviewer in the room. Every participant is told plainly they are talking to an AI. It reaches the whole business at a scale a single in-person round cannot. You receive a written synthesis of themes and direct quotes, organised by question and by role.
Structured interviews, in person
Scoped after a conversationThe same structured interview, run by a consultant face to face or by video, one conversation at a time, with a human present to follow up on an answer. For sensitive questions, or where trust in an AI-run process is not there yet. Usually leadership first. You receive the same written synthesis, plus the consultant's own observations.
Focus groups
Scoped after a conversationA facilitated group conversation with a team or a cross-section of staff, in person or by video. It shows where a group agrees, where it splits, and how a view holds up once people hear a colleague argue a different one. You receive a written summary of themes, consensus, disagreement, and direct quotes.
Surveys
Scoped after a conversationA short structured questionnaire for some or all of the business. Interviews and focus groups answer depth; a survey answers spread: how widely a view or behaviour is actually held. You receive a written results summary with response rates and breakdowns by group where the sample allows it.
How they combine
The value is in reading them together
These are not three interchangeable ways of asking the same thing. Each answers a different axis, and the findings come from where they agree and where they do not.
Surveys read bottom-up
Broad reach across however many people respond. You get spread, how widely a view is held, at the cost of depth on any one person's reasoning.
Interviews read top-down
A small number of conversations, usually leadership first. You get depth and stated intent, what the business believes is true and why, at the cost of reach.
Focus groups are targeted
Aimed at a specific issue with a specific group, deployed second, once the other two disagree, to find out why with the people actually living the gap.
Where leadership's stated view and the survey's spread agree, you have a high-confidence finding a strategy can be built on directly. Where they disagree, that gap is usually the most important finding in the whole exercise, and exactly where a focus group earns its keep: not as a third measurement, but as the instrument that finds out why, with the people living the gap.
After a build
Checking a change actually took hold
Most AI initiatives do not fail at the build. They ship, work technically, and quietly stall because nobody checked whether the team actually absorbed the change. The same instruments answer that question after a build: a short repeat survey compared against the earlier baseline shows how widely the change has spread, and a focus group with the team most affected shows where resistance still sits, in their own words.
Checking is cheaper than assuming. A tool that has been quietly shelved costs its subscription every month and poisons the next initiative on the way through.
From our thinking
The psychology behind the questions
Written for business owners, not researchers.
Questions
Common questions
Why would an AI consultancy run interviews and surveys?
Because an AI strategy is only as good as its picture of the business. Where public information and an audit answer the question, they are enough on their own. Some questions only get answered by asking people directly: who inside the business is already pulled toward AI, what the team actually thinks about a change, and later, whether a change has actually taken hold.
Will staff know they are talking to an AI in the AI-conducted interviews?
Yes, always. Every participant is told plainly at the start that the interview is conducted by an AI, with no scripted human persona. That is the same disclosure rule we apply to every AI assistant we run, and it is not optional.
Is what people say kept confidential?
Reporting is organised by question, theme, and role, with direct quotes. How attribution works is agreed with you before anything is run, and stated to participants up front, so nobody is surprised by where their words end up.
Why not just run one of the three?
Because each answers a different axis of the same question. The survey tells you how widely a view is held, the interviews tell you what leadership believes and why, and a focus group unpacks the places where those two disagree. Where all three point the same way, you have a finding a strategy can be built on directly. Any one alone can mislead.
How does this fit with your audits?
The AI Opportunity Audit works from the outside in: digital presence, market position, customer journey, operations. The Workflow Audit works from one person's recorded workday. Where those answer the question, you do not need this. Where they cannot, because the question is about what people inside the business think and do, the discovery instruments become the input, alongside or instead of the audits.
How much does discovery cost?
It depends on how many people are involved and which instruments the question actually needs. The scope comes out of an initial conversation, which also tells you honestly whether you need this at all.
Start from what's true
Tell us the question you cannot answer from the outside. We will tell you which instrument answers it, and whether you need any of this at all. No pitch, no pressure.
Start with a conversation