The M1 assessment · buying-committee brief

Before you buy an implementation, prove the function.

A one-page brief on the Milton M1 assessment, written to be forwarded to the people who have to sign off: the CFO, CIO, COO, GC, and CISO. M1 does not deliver AI technology. It prevents the wrong implementation from being bought.

What M1 is

A paid, four to six week assessment that delivers a decision.

M1 is the first rung of Milton's commercial ladder and the deliberate entry point. No agents are deployed. A senior delivery team audits the function that hurts most, your data and integration readiness, and the economics, then hands back a board-ready case for whether, where, and how to proceed. It is scoped and charged like the work it is.

What you leave with

The Milton M1 Value Case.

A single, defensible package your board will recognize:

  • A maturity score, and a data and API readiness audit
  • The first function worth assessing, and the reasoning behind it
  • A value case built on your actual numbers, with conservative, base, and optimistic scenarios and a sensitivity view
  • A 90-day implementation plan for the recommended first function
  • The first two to three agent roles to build, the seats that would pair to specific people, provisioned at M2, not M1
  • The governance, security, and risk gaps to close first
  • A clear recommendation on the next step
The output is a decision, not a maybe

Go, hold, or stop.

The value case ends in one of three explicit recommendations. M1 is built to tell you no when the answer is no.

Go

The function clears the bar. Proceed to a scoped M2 lighthouse implementation against a documented baseline, with the design target and a credit policy defined up front.

Hold

The opportunity is real but a readiness gap, data access, sponsorship, or process, has to close first. The plan names exactly what, and in what order.

Stop

The numbers do not support a transformation here yet. You have spent an assessment, not an implementation, and you know it before the spend.

What each seat gets

One assessment, four board-level answers.

For the CEO

A board-ready path from AI experiments to one measurable operating-model change, without a multi-year strategy program.

For the CFO

A quantified case before any implementation spend, with scenarios, sensitivity, and a credit policy if a design target is missed.

For the CIO

Governed agents across your existing stack, scoped permissions, human sign-off, audit trails, no single-vendor bet.

For the COO

Recurring coordination, monitoring, and exception handling moved out of senior people's heads onto named owners.

Governance & security

A packet your security team can sign off on.

M1 produces a security and procurement packet, data handling, model-provider choices, human approval thresholds, audit-log design, rollback plan, customer-side requirements, and our SOC 2 roadmap, and names the governance gaps to close before any agent is provisioned. Full detail at milton.md/security.

The path

Audit first. One function next. Scale after proof.

M1 defines the problem. M2 stands up a working agentic workforce in a single function against a documented baseline, with a share of the fee held against the design target. M3 scales to the next functions once the lighthouse is proven. The full ladder runs to M6. See the M1 to M6 ladder.

How to start

A 30-minute fit call.

Built for $200M to $1B organizations with an executive AI sponsor and one painful function. The fit call determines whether your first function is worth a paid M1 assessment. No free pilot, no generic demo, a senior delivery lead, one conversation, and a clear next step.