Confront it — the board rehearsal

Present your case. Keep only the number that survives.

Most AI ROI slides carry one confident number. Bring yours here first. The room reads it line by line — what is traceable, what the detection actually caused, what was never a return — and deflates the inflated case, entry by entry, to what you can defend. Better to be reckoned with here than in the boardroom.

What the room tests

Three questions, asked of every line

The board does not improvise. Each line of your case meets the same three tests the framework draws, and the verdict on every cut is the measurement engine’s own — never a figure the room made up.

Traceability
Did the tool move the deal?

Revenue Influenced counts only when you name the engagement and describe what the AI traceably did on it. That description is your own honest attestation — the claim your board will test — not something the room validates. "Someone used ChatGPT on this account" is not enough to write down. An entry with that traceability left blank is struck in the room and named, not silently dropped.

Causation
Would you have caught it anyway?

Revenue Protected only counts when an AI-detected signal genuinely caused the human action that saved the revenue. If the team would have caught it without the detection, by your own answer, it does not count.

The refusal
Is it a return, or just activity?

Hours saved, adoption, tokens, prompts per user — the metrics a dashboard is proudest of. The room refuses each with the metric worth watching in its place. Volume is not value; more is just more.

And it will not accept one number. Revenue you influenced and revenue you protected are different claims with different proof; capability is not a dollar figure at all. If your visibility has not earned a number yet, the room does not sit — it hands you the baseline to build instead.

The reckoning

Build your case, then present it

Enter your own AI spend, the three dimensions, and your readiness level. Build the case, then present it to the room. Every cut is the engine’s real verdict on your own entries — arithmetic over what you typed, and nothing invented.

Context

AI spend for the period

The denominator — measured against value created, never a value metric on its own.

Dimension 1

Revenue Influenced

Deals AI was traceably part of — tied to the deal, not “someone used ChatGPT once.” Describe what the AI traceably did in your own words, and be honest: this is the question your board will ask, and the tool records your attestation rather than judging it. An entry with the engagement or that description left blank is shown, not counted.

Entry 1
Dimension 2

Revenue Protected

Retention or expansion an AI-detected signal caused. If the team would have caught it anyway, it does not count.

Entry 1
Did the AI detection cause the human action?
Dimension 3

Capability Built

What the team can do now that it could not six months ago. Not a dollar figure. Not hours saved.

Entry 1
Confidence

Your readiness level

Be honest here — it sets the confidence the number is allowed to carry, and the tool checks your claim against the evidence you entered.

The level is not a score. It is the confidence the number below is allowed to carry: not yet trustworthy — you have activity, not outcome visibility. at the first two levels, directional — curated, not comprehensive. at the third, and answerable with a number that connects to real revenue and real capability. at the top two.

The refusal

The metrics that do not count

Try to add hours saved, adoption, tokens, or any other metric. The tool refuses each with the metric worth watching instead.

Nothing here reaches the value read. The value picture is built only from Revenue Influenced, Revenue Protected, and Capability Built.

Select a readiness level to build the measurement.

The room

Build your case on the left — your AI spend, the three dimensions, and your readiness level. Then present it to the room and watch it read line by line, striking what will not bear weight, down to the number that survives.

Keep going

The room shows you what survives. Two more doors open onto the same instrument.

Start here
Ground Truth

Set the baseline the room needs. See whether your number can bear weight, or whether the honest next step is a baseline, not a return.

Enter Ground Truth
Build it
The Clearing

Build the running measurement itself — two revenue figures and a capability you can name, expressed at exactly the confidence you have earned.

Enter the Clearing
Read it
The full framework

The deep-dive: the five metrics that lie, the three dimensions in full, all five readiness levels, and the four prerequisites.

Open the deep-dive
Back to the AI ROI framework →

Framework developed in collaboration with Trisha Merriam and Erin Wiggers on the Value-First Data show.