What we kept hearing

Three questions we kept hearing

From hundreds of conversations with AI solution providers and AI solution buyers.

1

Why should I trust you?

Whether you build, sell, deploy or use AI, capability claims are no longer enough. Customers, partners, boards and stakeholders want evidence. AGBA AI Readiness Certification is an independent, evidence-backed assessment of your organisation or SBU.

2

Where am I in this AI game?

How mature is your organisation, really? AGBA assesses 6 pillars and 25 evidence-backed metrics — Strategy & Leadership, Data & Infrastructure, Talent & Adoption, Governance & Responsible AI, AI Adoption & Business Value, and GenAI, Agentic AI & Security — giving you a clear view of your AI maturity and your critical gaps.

3

What do I need to do next?

An assessment should not end with a score. AGBA identifies the areas that need attention and provides a prioritised roadmap, so leadership can focus on what matters most.

The value

For AI buyers: Know whether you are ready to scale AI and turn investment into business value.
For AI solution providers: Demonstrate that customers can trust you to build, deploy and govern AI.
For the board: An independent view of AI maturity, risks and priorities.
For customers and partners: Credible, verifiable evidence of your AI readiness.

Mapped to ISO/IEC 42001, the NIST AI RMF, the EU AI Act and India’s DPDP framework. Organisations achieving Level 3 — Scaling or above can qualify for AGBA AI Readiness Certification, subject to evidence verification.

The need

Everyone is doing AI. Almost nobody can prove they are ready.

Adoption raced ahead of outcomes. The gap now shows up in wasted capital, not in model quality.

88% of organisations now use AI in at least one business function Generative AI reached 53% population adoption in three years — faster than the PC or the internet. Stanford HAI · 2026 AI Index Report

and yet

95% see no measurable P&L impact from generative AI Only 5% of integrated pilots extract real value, against $30–40bn of enterprise GenAI spend. MIT Media Lab · Project NANDA, The GenAI Divide (2025)

42%

of companies scrapped at least one AI initiative in 2025 — up from 17% the year before.

S&P Global

46%

of AI proof-of-concepts are abandoned before they ever reach production.

S&P Global

60%

of AI projects without AI-ready data will be abandoned through 2026.

Gartner

13%

of organisations qualify as AI “Pacesetters”. The rest trail materially.

Cisco AI Readiness Index

The common thread is not technology. 73% of failed AI projects had no agreed definition of success before they began. Projects that set quantified success measures upfront succeed 54% of the time versus 12% without. What is missing is measurement, not models. Stanford’s 2026 Index puts inaccuracy as the number-one cited AI risk at 74% — up 14 points in a single year and ahead of cybersecurity — which is exactly what the Data and Model-risk pillars measure. Gartner

And the top of the field is thin. Independent studies put only a narrow elite at the frontier:

~5%

are “future-built”, capturing 5× revenue and 3× cost gains from AI (BCG 2025)

~6%

are AI high-performers with ≥5% EBIT from AI (McKinsey 2025)

~12%

are “AI Achievers” combining strategy, data and people (Accenture)

The cost

The cost of not being AI-ready

It stopped being a technical problem. It is now a commercial one.

Happening now

Deals you never hear about

Enterprise RFPs increasingly ask suppliers to evidence AI governance. Nobody sends a rejection letter saying “no AI assurance”, so the loss stays invisible until you are already off the list.

By Aug 2026

EU AI Act high-risk duties bind

If you build or deploy a high-risk system touching the EU, the obligations are live. Readiness work takes longer than the runway that is left.

By May 2027

India’s DPDP Rules reach full compliance

Significant Data Fiduciaries owe an annual data-protection impact assessment and algorithmic due diligence covering AI use.

Every board meeting

Directors signing off on risk they cannot see

Boards are asked to accept AI exposure on management’s word. An independent rating is something they can put in the minutes.

What we measure

The six AI-readiness pillars

From strategy and data to talent, governance, value and the GenAI/agentic frontier — each pillar mapped to India’s DPDP Act & IT Rules, the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001. Geometric, non-compensatory scoring with critical-control gates means a weak pillar cannot be masked by a strong one.

R1 · Capacity

Strategy & Leadership

AI vision, board-level sponsorship, sustained funding and a prioritised roadmap.

R2 · Capacity

Data & Infrastructure

Data quality and governance, ML platform, and MLOps maturity.

R3 · Capacity

Talent, Culture & Adoption

AI literacy, specialist skills, change readiness and workforce adoption — BCG puts ~70% of AI value in people and process.

R4 · Capacity

Governance, Responsible & Trustworthy AI

AI policy, the trustworthy-AI dimensions — fairness, transparency, privacy, accountability, human oversight — NIST AI RMF risk management and ISO 42001 alignment.

R5 · Performance

Adoption & Value

Use cases in production, measured ROI and EBIT impact, scaling and workflow integration. Scope note: this scores AI used in your own operations only. AI you build, sell or run for clients is scored under R2 (platform, MLOps) and R6 (guardrails, security), not here.

R6 · Capacity

GenAI, Agentic AI & AI Security

Readiness for the 2025–26 frontier: generative-AI guardrails, agentic-AI oversight, model risk management, AI security and robustness, and third-party or foundation-model risk (McKinsey agentic era · NIST Measure & Manage · Gartner AI TRiSM).

DPDP Act 2023 & Rules 2025 IT Act / IT Rules 2021 (2025) ISO/IEC 42001 NIST AI RMF 1.0 EU AI Act BCG · McKinsey · Accenture maturity

The maturity ladder

A tier you earn, not a badge you buy

Certification is issued at Level 3 and above only. Below that you receive a rating, a board report and a gap map — an honest picture, not a badge.

LEVEL 0

Nascent

below 20

LEVEL 1

Exploring

20–40

LEVEL 2

Operational

40–60

LEVEL 3 · CERTIFIED

Scaling

60–80

LEVEL 4 · CERTIFIED

Transformational

80+

How it works

From application to a board-ready roadmap

Independent, standards-mapped, and expert-verified at Verified tier.

01

Apply

Register your organisation and choose your assurance tier.

02

Submit

Answer the maturity workbook and attach evidence across the pillars.

03

Assess

Your score is computed the moment you submit. Choose Verified and an AGBA assessor verifies a risk-based sample of your evidence before it is certified.

04

Score

Your maturity level, capability-vs-delivery split and standards gap-map are computed.

05

Roadmap

A board-grade report sets the moves to climb a tier.

The deliverable

The report your board will actually use

Not a dashboard. A strategy document. Role-specific recommendation packs for every leader, grounded in your own scores.

Chairman & Board

Oversight, AI capital allocation, and the maturity gap to close.

CEO / MD

Strategy alignment, the bets to place, the one move that shifts a tier.

CIO / CTO

Data and platform foundation, MLOps, and the GenAI/agentic frontier.

Chief Data / AI Officer

Use-case portfolio, scaling, measured value, governance.

CHRO

AI literacy, specialist talent, change and adoption readiness.

CISO / DPO

Responsible AI, AI security, DPDP and data-protection readiness.

Assurance tiers

You choose how deeply it is verified

Higher tiers verify more. They never award a kinder score.

Readiness Rating

Self-declared · free · not a certification

Full scored report
Sector benchmark
Standards gap-map
ISO 42001 gap dossier

Verified Certification

Limited assurance · from ₹25,000

Everything in Rating
Assessor verifies an evidence sample
Verifiable badge + registry listing
Re-certification cadence

Audited Certification

Reasonable assurance · named sign-off

Everything in Verified
Independent expert review
Named lead assessor sign-off
Deep EU AI Act / DPDP dossier

Fee scales with annual turnover, so a startup and a ₹1,000 crore group do not pay the same. Scoped per organisation or per business unit. See the fee ladder

Get AI Readiness Certified

Why it is credible

What makes the rating defensible

A maturity rating only has value if the market trusts it and it reflects the standards you will actually be assessed against.

Mapped to the standards you will be assessed against

Every pillar maps to India’s DPDP Act and IT Rules, ISO/IEC 42001, the NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act — so the rating doubles as a gap map toward certification and compliance.

A scored position, not a vanity number

Your score is built from 25 evidence-backed metrics across six pillars, weighted and non-compensatory, so you see exactly which pillars carry your rating and how far each one sits from the next tier.

Non-compensatory, with critical-control gates

Geometric scoring means heavy spend on infrastructure cannot mask weak governance. Fail a gate on AI security or agentic oversight and no certification is issued, whatever the total score.

We assess, and we do not sell the fix

AGBA does not sell the remediation it then grades. That separation is what keeps the rating defensible to a board, a customer or an acquirer.

Publicly checkable

Every certificate carries a number anyone can verify, with its scope and expiry. A rating that cannot be checked is marketing.

Mapped to what you will actually be assessed against

ISO/IEC 42001

The AI management system standard. We map your evidence to all nine Annex A control objective areas (A.2–A.10, 38 reference controls).

NIST AI RMF 1.0

Govern, Map, Measure, Manage — the risk vocabulary your global customers already use.

EU AI Act

High-risk obligations bind from Aug 2026. We map your readiness, not your legal conformity.

India DPDP Act

DPDP Act 2023 and Rules 2025, alongside the IT Act and IT Rules. Full compliance lands by May 2027.

What this is not. An AGBA rating is a conformity-readiness assessment. It is not a legal conformity assessment under the EU AI Act, nor an accredited ISO/IEC 42001 certification — those are granted only by the competent authority and an accredited certification body respectively. We map you to them, and we tell you what you would fail today.

The issuer

Who is issuing this

A credential is worth exactly what its issuer is worth.

16 editions since 2010

Initiated by the Aegis School of Data Science, Cyber Security & Telecom as a tribute to Alexander Graham Bell.

1,000+ organisations

Enterprises, startups and academic institutions have taken part across the award’s editions.

Judged by an independent jury

Winners are chosen by a jury with no stake in the outcome. The same discipline governs the AI Readiness rating.

India is writing the rules right now. MeitY and UNESCO ran the AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) across India from May 2024: five stakeholder consultations under the IndiaAI Mission, with NITI Aayog in the policy direction. UNESCO RAM assesses countries. We assess organisations, in the same language your regulator already uses.

Recognition

Certified organisations are felicitated on stage

A credential earns more when it is conferred in public. Every AI Readiness Certification holder is felicitated at Bharat AI Innovation, India’s AI conference and exhibition.

20–21 Nov 2026Two-day conference

WTC MumbaiWorld Trade Centre

Conference & exhibitionDelegates, exhibitors, press

Your certification is handed over on stage in front of peers, press and policymakers — not emailed as a PDF. Recognition at a national AI forum travels further than a badge on a website, and it happens where your buyers, partners and government stakeholders already gather.

The Aegis Graham Bell Awards have felicitated India’s innovators for 16 editions. AI Readiness Certification joins that stage.

Certify before the cycle closes to be felicitated at Bharat AI Innovation, 20–21 November 2026, WTC Mumbai.

Winners felicitated on stage at the Aegis Graham Bell Awards — Winners felicitated at the 16th Annual Aegis Graham Bell Awards.

A moment, not a PDF

Certification handed over in front of peers, press and policymakers.

Your customers are there

Felicitation happens where buyers, partners and government stakeholders already gather.

A reason to certify now

The cohort felicitated in November is decided by who is certified before it.

Who it is for

One engine, four go-to-market motions

Large groups are certified per business unit — every badge, certificate and registry entry states its perimeter.

Corporates & SBUs

Certification per business unit, plus an Index position for the board pack.

Startups & SMEs

Certification only — a credential that wins client trust. Never publicly ranked.

Universities & colleges

Institutional certification, and Index standing that sits naturally beside NIRF and NAAC.

Government & ministries

A commissioned readiness Index across departments or states — a policy instrument they own.

The wider frame

Part of the AGBA Certification & Index

Readiness tells you how AI-ready you are. Two companion assessments complete the picture — the risk and governance conformity posture of each live AI system, and where your company ranks on innovation. Same evidence-gated, independently-reviewed AGBA rigour.

Companion certification

Bharat AI Risk & Governance

A per-AI-system conformity-readiness rating mapped to India’s DPDP Act, the MeitY India AI Governance Guidelines (2025), the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001 — the controls that stand between your systems and the regulators.

Assess an AI system

Companion index

AGBA India Innovation Index

An independent company-level innovation rating across strategy, capability, portfolio, culture and impact — with your sector and national rank and a board-grade report. The wider frame around your AI readiness.

See the Innovation Index

The credential

What you actually receive

The credential issued on certification — verifiable, dated, and tied to an assessed maturity level.

AGBA AI Readiness & Strategy Assessment

AI Readiness Certification

This is to record that

Meridian Financial Services Ltd

BFSI business unit · Large · Assessment cycle 2026

Readiness Index

72.4

out of 100

Maturity level

Level 3 · Scaling

Assurance

Limited

Evidence verified by AGBA

Issued · Valid till

Aug 2026 – Aug 2027

Felicitated at

Bharat AI Innovation 2026

Chair, AGBA Innovation

Assurance: Limited · Valid 12 months

Specimen certificate. Company, index and dates are illustrative — a real credential is issued only after an assessor verifies the supporting evidence, and can be checked at assessfy.com/innovation_verify.

FAQ

Questions buyers actually ask

If something here is unclear, it is a fault in how we explain it — tell us.

What does it cost?

The Readiness Rating is free at every size — a full scored report, your maturity level and a standards gap-map, with no card required. Verified Certification starts at ₹25,000 and scales with annual turnover, so a startup and a ₹1,000 crore group do not pay the same. See the fee ladder

How long is the certification valid?

12 months from the date of issue. After that the credential shows as expired on its public verification page and drops out of the public registry — AI readiness moves too fast for an open-ended claim to mean anything.

What is the difference between the free rating and the certification?

The rating is self-declared: you answer, the engine scores, you get the report. The certification adds independent verification — an assessor reviews a sample of your evidence before anything is issued — plus a verifiable badge and a listing in the public registry. Only the certification is a credential you can show a client.

What do you actually measure?

25 metrics across 6 pillars, mapped to ISO/IEC 42001, the NIST AI RMF, the EU AI Act and India’s DPDP Act. See the pillars or read the full published methodology — every weight and formula is on that page.

Can we just rate ourselves highly and pass?

No. Scoring is non-compensatory — a weak critical control caps your result no matter how strong everything else is — and a certification additionally requires that an assessor has verified evidence. A high self-rating with nothing behind it produces a rating, not a certification.

Who sees the result?

You do. Nothing is published unless you earn a certification and it is issued; only then does the credential appear on its verification page and in the public registry. The free rating is private to you.

What happens after we are certified?

You get the verifiable credential and badge, a listing in the public registry, and certified organisations are felicitated on stage at Bharat AI Innovation.

How AI-ready is your organisation, really?