Organisations That Chose a More Considered Path
These are accounts from organisations that chose to begin their AI journey thoughtfully — with honest assessment, trained people, and systems designed to last.
Back to HomeWhat They Experienced
"We commissioned the AI Maturity Assessment because we genuinely didn't know where to start. The report gave us a realistic picture — not a flattering one, but an honest one. It set us up for a much more sensible planning process than we would have had otherwise."
"The Champions Development Programme was exactly what we needed. Our champions came out with specific action plans for their own departments, not generic AI talking points. Watching them facilitate discussions with their teams three months later was genuinely satisfying."
"The architecture engagement was methodical and thorough. What I valued most was that they pushed back on two of our assumptions early on — both of which would have caused significant problems later. That kind of honesty during the design phase is genuinely rare."
"We appreciated that Shiok Labs didn't push a particular platform. They helped us evaluate three options objectively and were transparent about the trade-offs of each. We felt like we were being advised, not sold to."
"Our maturity report came back with a score lower than we expected. Initially that was uncomfortable to sit with. But three months on, looking at the specific gaps they identified, we've made more targeted progress than the two years prior. The honest starting point mattered."
"What stood out was how much they listened before they spoke. The first few sessions were almost entirely questions. That meant when the recommendations came, they actually reflected our situation rather than a template applied to us."
A Closer Look at Selected Engagements
All details are generalised to protect client confidentiality. These accounts reflect the types of engagements we conduct.
A mid-sized logistics company had appointed an "AI Committee" and approved a budget for AI adoption, but couldn't agree on where to begin. Internal views on their readiness varied widely, and initial vendor proposals ranged from modest to highly ambitious with no basis for comparison.
A five-week AI Maturity Assessment covering all five dimensions. Interviews were conducted with 14 stakeholders across operations, IT, HR, and senior management. Data infrastructure and governance documentation were reviewed in parallel.
The organisation received a maturity score of 2.4/5, clearly below the sector median of 3.1. The report identified data quality and governance as primary blockers — not technology. This shifted internal focus and removed S$280K of premature technology spend from the near-term plan.
A professional services firm had invested in an AI platform and trained a central IT team to manage it, but adoption across business units was stalling. Business teams saw AI as an IT project, not their own.
An eight-week Champions Development Programme with eight participants drawn from client advisory, research, finance, and HR. Each participant completed structured sessions plus a department-level experiment within the programme timeline.
Six months after the programme, four of the eight champions were facilitating their own team-level AI workshops monthly. Platform usage across non-IT teams increased by 38% in the two quarters following completion. Internal perception surveys showed a marked shift in ownership.
A healthcare administration organisation had a clear use case — automating a document review process — but could not find internal consensus on the right technical approach. Two competing vendor proposals had left the IT and clinical teams more uncertain, not less.
A ten-week Custom Solution Architecture engagement covering requirements from both IT and clinical perspectives, an independent evaluation of the two vendor proposals, security and PDPA compliance mapping, and development of a vendor-neutral architectural design.
The architectural blueprint revealed that neither vendor proposal was optimal. A modified approach using one vendor's document processing component with a different provider for the workflow layer was identified. Implementation began within eight weeks of handover, on a timeline the organisation described as their fastest technology adoption in five years.
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