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AI Audit & Strategy

An AI audit maps where AI pays off in your operation, ranks candidates by return and risk, and checks each against the EU AI Act and GDPR. Fixed price, one to two weeks, a plan you can execute without us.

Most AI projects fail on the problem they were aimed at, not on the technology. In one to two weeks we audit your data, systems and day-to-day processes, rank every AI opportunity by return and risk, and hand you a roadmap you can execute with or without us.

Last updated: 14 September 2026

In short

An AI audit and strategy at Crux Digits is a fixed-price engagement of one to two weeks that maps where AI pays off in your operation, ranks the candidates by return and risk, checks each against the EU AI Act and GDPR, and hands you a plan you can execute with or without us. Go on to the Production-ready MVP within 60 days and the audit fee is credited in full. It regularly concludes that a setting in a system you already own solves the problem.

What it is

Know where AI will pay off: before you build a thing

An AI Audit & Strategy engagement fixes the aim before anything is built: we look at what your business actually does, which documents and systems the work runs through (invoices in Exact or AFAS, work orders, orders in your ERP or WMS, customer email), where time and money leak out, and which of those problems AI is genuinely good at solving.

You come away with a clear, honest picture: what is worth doing now, what to park, and what it will realistically take to get there. No 80-slide deck nobody reads. A short list of opportunities ranked by impact, effort and risk, each with a cost, a saving and a payback period, and the first build already priced.

What's included

What is included in the audit?

Data & systems review

An honest look at the data and tools you already have, and what's missing to make them AI-ready.

Opportunity mapping

We map where AI can cut cost, save time or open revenue across your teams and workflows.

Prioritised roadmap

A ranked shortlist of use cases, sequenced by impact, effort and dependency, so you know what to do first.

ROI & business case

Projected costs, savings and payback for each opportunity, written for the people who sign it off.

Risk, ethics & EU AI Act

Each idea is checked against EU AI Act risk tiers and GDPR up front: compliance built in, not bolted on.

Build-vs-buy guidance

Where to use off-the-shelf tools, where to build custom, and where to wait, with the reasoning spelled out.

Three people in a working session around a table of printed process diagrams
Discovery: one working session on goals, constraints and where the pain is.

How it works

How does the audit run?

Four fixed steps. You see something real at the end of each one.

  1. Two colleagues going through notes at a laptop1

    Discovery

    A working session with your team on goals, constraints and where the hours really go, under a mutual NDA.

  2. A consultant reviewing a printed report with a client2

    Audit & analysis

    We dig into your data, systems and processes and pressure-test the most promising AI opportunities.

  3. A planning wall covered in task cards3

    Roadmap & ROI

    We rank the opportunities, attach numbers, and shape them into a phased plan you can act on.

  4. One person handing a printed document to another4

    Handover

    We walk you and your stakeholders through it. If you go on to the Production-ready MVP within 60 days, the audit fee is credited in full.

What you walk away with

What do you walk away with?

  • A prioritised AI roadmap you can start on next quarter
  • A clear business case and ROI estimate for each opportunity
  • An honest read on your data and what to fix first
  • EU AI Act & GDPR risk flagged before you commit
  • One team that can take it from strategy through to a working build
The method

How an opportunity gets ranked, and why that is checkable

Every consultancy promises a prioritised roadmap. Almost none says how the order was arrived at, which means you cannot argue with it. Ours is three numbers per candidate, and you can challenge any of them.

  • Return. The hours the process consumes today multiplied by a loaded rate, plus the cost of the errors it produces. Taken from your own figures, not a benchmark. If nobody can say how long the task takes, that is itself a finding and the candidate drops.
  • Effort. What it takes to build, dominated almost always by the state of the data and the interfaces rather than by the model. A use case sitting on clean records in Exact or AFAS is a different project from the same use case sitting on scanned PDFs.
  • Risk. The EU AI Act class for that specific application, the GDPR basis, and what happens when the system is confidently wrong. A candidate whose failure is invisible ranks below one whose failure is obvious, because the invisible one costs more to run.

The output is a short list, each line carrying a cost, a saving and a payback period. You should be able to take it to a finance director and defend it without us in the room.

The honest case

What the audit says when AI is not the answer

This is the part worth reading before you buy anything. A meaningful share of audits conclude that the problem is better solved by a setting in a system you already own, a fixed integration, or a change to who does what. We say so, and the engagement ends there.

That is not a disclaimer. It is the reason the audit is priced as a fixed fee and not as the first stage of an inevitable build: if the recommendation were always to build, the ranking would be theatre. Three things commonly displace an AI project in our own findings: a module already licensed in the ERP and never switched on, a report someone rebuilds by hand every week because nobody knew it could be scheduled, and a data-entry step that exists only because two systems were never connected.

A supplier who has never told you not to build has not been testing the question.

Ownership

What you can do with the plan if you never hire us again

The deliverable is written to survive the relationship. That constraint changes what goes into it, so it is worth being explicit about what you receive.

  • Enough specification to get a competing quote. Scope, interfaces, data sources and acceptance criteria per candidate, in language another supplier can price. If a plan can only be executed by the firm that wrote it, it was a sales document.
  • The evidence behind each number. Which process was measured, over what period, and what was assumed. You can re-run the arithmetic when your volumes change.
  • The compliance judgement per use case. Risk class and legal basis for that application, so your own DPO or legal counsel can check it rather than take it on trust.

The fee is credited in full against a Production-ready MVP started within 60 days, so choosing to build with us costs the same as having come to us for the build in the first place. Choosing not to costs you the audit fee and nothing else.

FAQ

Questions, answered

How long does an AI audit take?

One to two weeks, depending on how many teams and systems are in scope. You get a working roadmap at the end, not a six-month study that is out of date by the time it lands.

Do we need clean data before we start?

No. Part of the audit is telling you honestly where your data stands and what it would take to get it AI-ready. Messy, scattered data is the normal starting point: we plan around it.

What does it cost?

The AI Audit & Strategy is a fixed €2,500 (excl. VAT), the same price regardless of company size. The roadmap always includes the projected ROI per use case, so you can see the return before you commit. Go on to the Production-ready MVP within 60 days and the audit fee is credited in full.

Is this just a report, or can you build it too?

Both. The audit ends in a prioritised roadmap, and the same Crux Digits team can build the first use case with you, so nothing gets lost in a handover to a different vendor.

Do you cover EU AI Act and GDPR?

Yes. Every opportunity we recommend is checked against EU AI Act risk tiers and GDPR from the start, so you're not retrofitting compliance after the fact.

Do you sign an NDA before we share our data?

Yes. We sign a mutual NDA before any audit work starts, before you share processes, data or systems. Your information stays confidential throughout.

Who owns the roadmap and all findings?

You do. Everything we produce (the roadmap, the analysis, the business case) is yours from the moment we hand it over. No vendor lock-in, no strings attached.

How quickly can we start?

Most clients start within 5 business days of agreeing scope. We keep a limited number of slots open at any time; book a free consultation to check current availability.

Who can we hire for an AI audit and strategy in the Netherlands?

Crux Digits is a boutique applied-AI firm in Utrecht, working with clients across the Netherlands and the EU, remotely or on-site as needed. The people who scope your audit are the ones who do the work, and the same team can build the first use case afterwards. If you want honest advice and a roadmap you can act on, rather than a generic slide deck, we are worth a conversation.

How do we get started with an AI audit, and what does a typical project look like?

You start with the €2,500 audit, which scopes where AI actually pays off in one to two weeks. If you then build, the price is fixed before work starts: the Production-ready MVP is €20,000 in four to six weeks, production from €50,000. The people who scoped the audit do the work, you own the source code and IP, and the EU AI Act and GDPR are covered from the start.

What you can verify
  • KvK 87456346Registered in the Dutch Handelsregister
  • Since 2022Crux Digits B.V., Utrecht region
  • 13 casesPublished, each with its own number
One real engagement

AI Demand Forecasting & Production Planning

What we found. Day-to-day planning across a wide SKU range was largely manual, and every mould change leaked capacity. Without a reliable demand signal, the manufacturer was over- and under-producing in turn — and losing ground to aggressive competitors.

+8%Revenue growth within a year
+7%Production-capacity improvement
#4Market position retained vs. heavy competition

Real result from a Crux Digits engagement; client name withheld pending permission.

Read the full case study →

Not sure where AI fits yet?

That is what the audit is for. In a free 30-minute call you describe the process, we tell you whether an audit is the right first step and what it would look at.

Book a free consultation →