What is the AI Readiness Framework?
The AI Readiness Framework or the AIRI Framework or just AIRI is a comprehensive, evidence-based system for measuring and developing AI readiness at both individual and organisational levels. It consists of two assessments — pAIRI (Personal AI Readiness Index) for individuals and oAIRI (AI Readiness Index for Organisations) — built on a shared architecture of 5 pillars, 15 dimensions, and 5 maturity levels. The framework is released under CC BY 4.0, which means anyone can use, adapt, and deploy it freely with attribution.

What’s the difference between pAIRI and oAIRI?
pAIRI measures individual AI readiness — your personal skills, mindset, and capabilities. oAIRI measures organisational AI readiness — leadership commitment, governance, infrastructure, and culture. They share the same 5-pillar structure but ask context-appropriate questions. When used together, they reveal alignment gaps between workforce readiness and organisational capability.

Who developed the framework?
Version 1.0 and 2.0 of the original AI Readiness Index (or AIRI) was developed by Laurence Liew and his team in AI Singapore from 2019-2025.

This new Version 3.1 – renamed to The AI Readiness Framework (or the AIRI Framework) is developed solely by Laurence Liew (who is still the current Director of AI Innovation at AI Singapore). It’s built on 8+ years of hands-on experience helping over 1,000 organisations adopt AI, completing 300+ AI projects, and reaching 300,000+ professionals through AI literacy programmes. Note that airi.foundation, aifirstnation.org and aiready.sg are personal initiatives not affiliated with AI Singapore.

Why is AIRI a personal initiative and not an AI Singapore project anymore?
AI Singapore’s mission is focused on executing Singapore’s national AI strategy — building local AI talent, supporting Singapore-based companies, and advancing AI research within Singapore. That’s exactly what programmes like AIAP and 100E were designed to do, and they’ve been incredibly successful at it.

The AIRI framework grew out of that work, but its ambitions became global. We started getting interest from organisations across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and USA — and from international bodies like the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) now part of OECD. A global AI readiness standard doesn’t fit neatly inside a national programme office with Singapore-specific funding and KPIs.

So the natural path was for AIRI to live independently — as an open standard under CC BY 4.0 that anyone can adopt, adapt, and build on. AI Singapore focuses on what it does best for Singapore. AIRI serves the broader global community.

What version is the framework currently at?
The current public version is v3.1 (June 2026). This version integrates AI agent delegation proficiency, specification thinking, trust calibration, and the Automation → Transformation inflection point at Level 2. The framework evolves with AI capability waves — questions and dimensions are updated as AI matures, but the 5-pillar architecture remains stable.

Is the framework free to use?
Yes. The framework is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). You can use, adapt, and redistribute it — including for commercial purposes — as long as you provide attribution. This means your organisation, industry association, or government agency can deploy pAIRI and oAIRI internally using your own tools and platforms. The full question set, behavioural anchors, scoring methodology, and implementation guide are all available in the framework PDF and markdown files (for easy LLM ingestion and implementation), which you can download from this site.

How long do the assessments take?
Each assessment takes 15–20 minutes. Both pAIRI and oAIRI have 15 questions across 5 pillars. The questions use behavioural anchors — specific descriptions of what someone at each maturity level actually does — so you select the option that matches your current behaviour, not what you hope to achieve.

Are there right or wrong answers?
No. Each question presents five behavioural anchors — descriptions of observable behaviour at different maturity levels. You select the one that honestly matches where you are today. The framework uses behavioural evidence rather than self-assessed attitudes, which prevents grade inflation and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Every anchor is designed to be verifiable — could a colleague or manager confirm your answer?

What does “AI Ready” mean? Do I need to reach Level 4?
AI Ready (Level 2) is the success target for most professionals and organisations. You don’t need to become an AI expert — you need to use AI effectively in your work. L2 marks the inflection point from AI automation (“What can we automate?”) to AI transformation (“How should we restructure work around AI?”). Levels 3 and 4 are for specialists and transformation leaders — valuable roles, but not where most people need to be.

How often should I retake the assessment?
For pAIRI (personal), we recommend reassessing every 3–6 months, or whenever you’ve invested significantly in building new AI skills. If you’re using a learning platform that tracks course completions against pillar dimensions, your scores may update automatically. For oAIRI (organisational), reassess every 6 months or after major organisational changes — leadership transitions, significant AI programme milestones, or restructuring. Organisational changes happen outside any single platform, so a fresh leadership consensus session is always valuable.

Can I use AIRI to prioritise AI projects?
Yes. The AIRI Decision Engine uses a formula that scores individual AI projects based on the five pillars:
a) AIRI Project Score = [(0.7xP4 + 0.3 x P5) + P3 + (2 × P1)] × P2 Ethics Modifier.
b) P1 (People & Culture) is double-weighted because people factors drive 85–87% of AI project failures.
c) P2 (Ethics) acts as a gate that can halt a project entirely.

The full Decision Engine workshop guide is available in our Download section.

How are scores calculated?
Each answer maps to a fixed point value: L0 = 0.00, L1 = 1.25, L2 = 2.50, L3 = 3.75, L4 = 5.00. Your pillar score is the average of all question scores within that pillar. Your overall score is the average of all 15 individual question scores (not the average of the 5 pillar scores — this matters because pillars have different numbers of questions). Score ranges for level assignment are: L0 (0.00–0.99), L1 (1.00–1.99), L2 (2.00–2.99), L3 (3.00–3.99), L4 (4.00–5.00).

What do “behavioural anchors” mean?
Behavioural anchors are specific, observable descriptions of behaviour at each maturity level. Instead of asking “How good are you at X?” (which invites self-assessment bias), each option describes what someone at that level actually does. For example, an L2 anchor might read: “I regularly analyse data, create charts, and draw insights as part of my work.” This describes something a colleague could verify, not a self-assessed feeling. The result is more accurate, more consistent scoring across diverse populations.

Can my organisation use AIRI internally?
Yes. The framework is licensed under CC BY 4.0, which allows commercial and non-commercial use with attribution. Many organisations use oAIRI to benchmark teams, track AI transformation progress, and inform training investments. You can deploy it using your own tools — see “Deploying the Framework Yourself” below for how to get started. For enterprise support, custom workshops, and facilitated assessments, contact us.

How does pAIRI connect to oAIRI?
pAIRI feeds into one oAIRI dimension: D2 (AI Literacy) within P1 (Leadership & Culture). When used together, you can compare aggregate workforce pAIRI scores against organisational oAIRI scores to identify gaps. For example, if your workforce averages L2 on pAIRI but your oAIRI Data Foundation is at L0, you know individual skills are outpacing organisational infrastructure — your people want to use AI but the organisation isn’t enabling them.

Where can I take the assessments?
The framework is an open standard (CC BY 4.0), so you have several options:

a) Set it up yourself — The framework PDF contains all 30 questions (15 pAIRI + 15 oAIRI) with behavioural anchors and the complete scoring methodology. You can implement the assessments in any survey tool. See “Deploying the Framework Yourself” below for a quick-start guide.

b) Run a facilitated workshop — Many organisations run oAIRI as a leadership consensus session using tools like Slido or Mentimeter for live group scoring. The AIRI Decision Engine workshop guide (in our Resources section) walks you through the full process.

c) Use a hosted platform — aiready.sg offers a free, ready-to-go implementation with automated scoring and personalised learning recommendations.

Can my organisation run pAIRI/oAIRI assessments using our own tools?
Absolutely — that’s what the CC BY 4.0 licence is for. The Stakeholder Brief contains all 30 questions (15 pAIRI + 15 oAIRI), the five behavioural anchors per question, and the complete scoring methodology. You can implement the assessments in any survey tool that supports weighted scoring or post-submission calculation. No permission needed — just provide attribution.

What tools can I use to deploy the assessments?
Any survey or form tool that lets you assign point values to answer options will work. Here are common setups, from simplest to most capable:

For quick individual or team assessments: Google Forms + Google Sheets — Build the 15 questions as multiple-choice, export responses to Sheets, and use AVERAGE formulas for pillar and overall scores. You can have a working pAIRI assessment in under an hour.

For live workshops (oAIRI consensus sessions): Slido or Mentimeter — Display each question on screen, have the leadership team vote on the behavioural anchor that best describes the organisation, and use the live average as the consensus score per question. Export results for pillar calculation in a spreadsheet.

For organisations wanting a branded, reusable assessment: SurveyMonkey, Typeform, or JotForm — Use hidden values or calculation fields to map answer options to point values (L0 = 0.00, L1 = 1.25, L2 = 2.50, L3 = 3.75, L4 = 5.00). Most of these platforms support end-screen logic to display the resulting maturity level.

For enterprise or national-scale deployments: WordPress-based platforms with plugins like FluentForms or WPForms with calculation add-ons — Build a multi-step form with radio buttons mapped to point values. Use the platform’s built-in calculation feature or a lightweight PHP hook to compute pillar averages and overall score. Store results in user meta for dashboard display. This is how aiready.sg is built.

The key requirement across all tools is that each of the five answer options per question maps to the correct point value, and that pillar scores are calculated as the mean of question scores within each pillar. The overall score must be calculated as the mean of all 15 individual question scores — not the mean of the 5 pillar scores. This matters because pillars have different numbers of questions (5, 3, 2, 2, 3).

Can we use the framework at industry association or country level?
Yes — and this is one of the most powerful applications. Several deployment models work well at scale:

Industry associations can offer pAIRI as a member benefit — “Know your AI Readiness Level” — and aggregate anonymised results to publish an industry benchmark report. This positions the association as a thought leader while giving members actionable data. Run the assessment annually to track industry-wide progress.

Government agencies can deploy pAIRI across the civil service or use oAIRI to benchmark ministry-level AI readiness. The standardised scoring allows cross-agency comparison and targeted investment in the weakest pillars nationally. Several countries are already exploring national AI readiness benchmarks — the framework provides a ready-made, open-standard instrument.

Training providers can use pAIRI as an intake assessment to place learners into appropriate programmes, and as an outcome measure to demonstrate programme effectiveness. Pre-programme and post-programme pAIRI scores provide quantitative evidence of capability development.

For large-scale deployments, keep three design decisions in mind: (a) use semantic answer keys to prevent scoring errors at volume, (b) compute overall scores from individual question scores, not pillar averages, and (c) plan for cohort analysis — breaking results down by department, role level, industry, or geography gives far richer insights than a single aggregate number.

If you need guidance on large-scale deployment, reach out to us.

What about data privacy when running assessments at scale?
You control the data. Because the framework is an open standard, your assessments run on your own infrastructure using your own tools. No data is shared with us unless you choose to. For sensitive contexts (government, healthcare, finance), this means you can deploy pAIRI and oAIRI within your existing data governance frameworks — no third-party data processing agreements needed.

What is airi.foundation?
airi.foundation is the canonical home of the AI Readiness Framework — pAIRI and oAIRI. It’s where you find the framework specification, download the PDF, and access implementation resources. It’s a personal initiative by Laurence Liew, not affiliated with AI Singapore.

What is aiready.sg?
aiready.sg is a separate platform that offers a hosted implementation of the framework with automated scoring, personalised AI readiness courses, and a peer learning community. It’s one way to use the framework — not the only way. aiready.sg is also a personal initiative by Laurence Liew, not affiliated with AI Singapore.

How can I contribute or get involved?
Join the AI Ready community on aiready.sg — it’s free and open to anyone deploying the framework. Share your implementation experiences, ask setup questions, compare benchmarks with peers across industries and countries, and help shape future versions. The group is where practitioners who’ve deployed pAIRI or oAIRI exchange templates, translated versions, and lessons learned. If you’ve adapted the framework for a specific industry or language, post it there — others will benefit. Register for a free account at aiready.sg to join.