Most finish in under 30 minutes.
Not a form. Each question is built from your last answer. Give us a number and we'll ask where it comes from. Mention a problem and we'll follow it.
Higher Education / AI Readiness Index
Before you spend on AI.
Know where it pays across the institution and where it would break first, with governance built in.
01 / What you walk away with
Five things a leadership team needs before spending on AI.
Everyone promises where AI pays. Nobody tells you where it will fail.
Where AI will pay. The single operating constraint that limits the institution most, and the two or three levers around it where AI creates leverage. Not a list of tools.
What to prioritize. Ranked, with the reason for the rank.
What not to automate yet. The parts of the operation that are not structurally ready, and what has to be true first. This is the part most AI assessments skip, and the part that saves the most money.
What it is worth. A conservative dollar figure for each lever, built from a number you stated against a named benchmark. If you cannot state the number, the report says so instead of inventing one.
What to do in the next 90 days. A 30/60/90 leadership roadmap, in the order that pays.
02 / How it works
We model the figures against named sector benchmarks.
Every figure shows its source.
You get the full report, or a live readout with your lead.
Then you decide on the 90-Day Advisory.
Who does what
Our AI interview gathers the facts. Lindsay Kinkade, our Chief Creative Officer, reviews your answers, runs the live interviews and delivers the readout. You always talk to a person before any Advisory.
Your answers are seen only by the Brainforest team and your lead. They are never used to train public AI.
03 / Every dollar has a source
Most AI assessments print a number to impress you. This one refuses to.
Each dollar figure in the report is one of your stated numbers, multiplied against a benchmark we name, at a conservative capture rate we show. Where you cannot state the number, the report prints a visibility finding instead of a dollar. The figure is smaller than a consultant would show you. It is also one you can defend to a board, a cabinet, or an auditor.
Prepared for / Higher Education / Confidential
The leadership team sees enrollment totals and term-end summaries, but cannot isolate where the first student or the first tuition dollar is lost.
Enrollment health is being interpreted through annual totals instead of measurable monthly operating readiness.
No single operating view proves whether net tuition revenue is leaking through retention, yield, summer melt, aid completion, or instructional cost.
On Monday morning, compare retention flags, yield by admit pool, aid-file completion, section fill, donor retention, and the accountable lead for each.
04 / What the interview is like
Which part of the student lifecycle (retention, yield, aid completion, instructional cost, workforce stability, or advancement) is creating the most pressure for your leadership team right now?
“Retention is holding, but yield and aid completion still feel unpredictable year to year.”
“Is the constraint retention, yield, summer melt, aid-file completion, instructional cost, or donor retention? What report would prove that by Monday morning?”
Describe the institution: total enrollment, governance structure (system campus, independent board), the shape of your leadership team, and the pressure that is hardest to move right now.
Public four-year, one campus in a state system. Cabinet of seven. The pressure that is hardest to move is retention, because by the time we see it, the cohort is gone.
Walk me through how retention works as an operating number here: who owns it, how often the leadership team sees it, and at what moment you find out a first-year student is not coming back.
Institutional research reports it annually after census. The provost sees it then. We usually learn a first-year student is not returning when they do not register for spring.
How large is your entering first-time full-time cohort this fall?
I have the number from the census file. Let me confirm it before I state it.
Use what you can state. Where a number is missing, the report says so instead of inventing one.
The interview does in under 30 minutes what a week of discovery would take.
It asks for proof, not opinion, because opinion is what every AI assessment already has.
05 / The report
Twenty-five sections, built from your interview.
Each figure comes from a number you stated, against a benchmark we name. Where you could not state one, the report says so.
- Opportunity dollars, with sources
- Where AI would break first
- What not to automate yet
- 30/60/90-day plan
- Leadership summary
See all 25 sections +Hide sections −
- 01Executive Snapshotfrom your stated numbers
- 02Leadership summaryfrom your stated numbers
- 03Opening Verdict
- 04Leadership Thesis
- 05Readiness Score and Revenue Opportunityfrom your stated numbers
- 06Money Movement Map
- 07Five Issues Shaping the Revenue Opportunity
- 08Top Constraint Analysis
- 09Metric Deep Diveswhere a number was missing
- 10How Each Bottleneck Works Inside the Operation
- 11Executive Signal
- 12Strategic Judgment
- 13Vertical Operating Context
- 14Evidence Register
- 15Priority and Risk Map
- 16Scenario Modeler: Adjust Assumptions to Estimate Recoverable Annual Upsidefrom your stated numbers
- 17Role and Workflow Impact
- 18Change Management
- 19Turn Diagnosis Into Motionfrom your stated numbers
- 20Readiness, in your words
- 21Where it pays, and where it would breakwhere a number was missing
- 22Monday morning
- 2330 / 60 / 90 Roadmap
- 24What you have, and what comes next
- 25Methodology and Confidence Notes
Leadership summarySection 02
Whether retention, yield, aid completion and net-revenue signals are monthly operating numbers here was not established in the interview; the dollar levers in this report rest on stated numbers only.
Institutional intelligence trapped in annual cycles and office seams
The risk is that the leadership team sets discount, schedule, and program decisions from last year's reported figures while this year's movement stays invisible.
11 critical visibility gaps
Stand up a monthly cohort retention view from the student information system with a named accountable lead.
Monday morningVerify
- Student Lifecycle Visibility
- Cohort retention movement visible monthly, early alerts worked by named leads, and second-fall registration tracked before summer.
- Enrollment Funnel and Aid Visibility
- Fewer aid-incomplete students at census, melt tracked weekly through summer, and a named lead per funnel stage.
- Net Revenue and Cost Visibility
- Net tuition revenue per student quotable by the leadership team, under-filled sections counted each term, and credit efficiency tracked at completion.
- Advancement and Data Readiness
- Year-over-year donor retention tracked against the institution's own stated peer set, and leadership-team numbers produced from source systems without manual rebuilds.
- Workforce Stability Visibility
- All-separations turnover tracked quarterly against the institution's own peer set, with time-to-fill and coverage cost visible.
Monday morningReview
- Retention movement is discovered at census, after the recoverable moment.
- Aid-incomplete students sit in an unowned queue over the summer.
- Net tuition revenue per student and section economics only appear in the year-end close.
Who built this
New diagnostic. Not new thinking.
The Executive Diagnostic is the first product in the AI Readiness Index. Brainforest is not new. Since 1995 we have helped leadership teams make hard operating decisions. The diagnostic applies that discipline to AI.
Brainforest and its principals have worked with organizations including BlackBerry, Motorola, the University of Chicago and Arizona State University.
Nils Bunde, Founder, Brainforest. Leads Brainforest's strategy work and built the diagnostic.
Lindsay Kinkade, Chief Creative Officer, Brainforest. Leads creative strategy and how findings are presented to leadership.
We are early, so we show our work.
We will not invent case studies. Judge the diagnostic by its questions, its method and its report. Verified results will appear here as they come in.
06 / Diagnostic ladder
Three ways in.
Start on your own with the AI Snapshot, or with an expert in the room with the Executive Diagnostic. The 90-Day Advisory is by application.
AI Snapshot
$795For: Leaders who want the numbers and the plan before talking to anyone.
Includes:
- Interview, most finish in under 30 minutes
- Readiness score
- Opportunity model with sources
- Where AI would break first
- 30/60/90-day plan
- Leadership summary
- Full report, web and PDF
Not included: Live interviews or readout
Start AI SnapshotFull fee credited toward the Executive Diagnostic or Advisory within 90 days of your report.
Executive Diagnostic
$5,950For: Leaders who want an expert in their field in the room before anyone spends on tools.
Includes:
- Everything in the Snapshot
- Live 60 to 90-minute interview with you, plus short interviews with your operations, enrollment and finance leads
- Your numbers checked and corrected, and the report reissued
- Your top 3 moves, ranked, each with a cost range and a first step
- A vendor-neutral tool shortlist for your #1 move
- 90-minute leadership readout, recorded
- 30 days of follow-up questions by email
Full fee credited toward the 90-Day Advisory within 90 days of your report.
90-Day Advisory
$18,500 $11,500 for the first 5 organizations, through December 31, 2026. Whichever comes first closes the offer.Includes:
- Executive Diagnostic included
- Six working sessions
- Written 90-day plan after Session 2
- One lever per session
- Day-90 re-score
- A board memo built on your actual figures
- Vendor-neutral tool shortlist
- Direct line, reply within 2 working days
Founding exchange: A named case study and one reference call.
Apply for the AdvisorySnapshot and Diagnostic fees credited in full within 90 days of the report.
Snapshot and Diagnostic: if we can't find at least 10x your fee in sourced, defensible opportunity, we refund the fee in full.
07 / The questions executives actually ask
One number you stated, one benchmark we name, one capture rate we show. All three are printed next to the figure. If you cannot state the number, there is no figure.
No. It is an adaptive interview that asks for evidence. It changes based on what you say.
No. You need under 30 minutes and your own knowledge of the institution.
Your answers are seen only by the Brainforest team and your lead. They are never used to train public AI.
Then the report says so, names what has to change first, and you have saved yourself from buying tools that would not have paid.
With the AI Snapshot, you have the full report and choose your next step. With the Executive Diagnostic, your lead runs the live interviews and the readout. Then, if the opportunity is real, the 90-Day Advisory. If not, you are done and you have the read.
Most finish the interview in under 30 minutes, in one sitting.
Every dollar figure is traced to your own numbers or a named source and labelled sourced, derived or estimate. If you find one that is not, reply to your report email and we correct it. Snapshot and Diagnostic: if we can't find at least 10x your fee in sourced, defensible opportunity, we refund the fee in full.