Individual
The person can name a task where AI may help, but has not yet made the task, inputs, review, or ownership repeatable.
Aware: the need for AI support is visible.
You can see where work is slow, repetitive, or difficult to reason about, but the work is still mostly manual and protected by personal intuition. Awareness is the starting condition, not a judgment about readiness or value.
How Aware appears at each level
Team
The team sees a shared opportunity, while process, handoffs, and responsibility remain mostly informal.
Organization
Leadership recognizes the strategic need, but has not yet built a coherent operating response or risk boundary.
The same person, team, or organization can be at different maturity levels in different workflows. Use evidence from live work.
Evidence to look for
Problem framing
A recurring task or gap can be named, but the desired outcome and constraints are still broad.
Grounding and evidence
People can identify important sources or context that an AI system would need, even if they do not yet use them consistently.
Validation and judgment
Review relies on intuition or a final read-through; the difference between fluent output and reliable output is not yet explicit.
Workflow integration
AI use is isolated or hypothetical rather than part of a defined sequence of work.
Ownership and communication
Accountability is implicit. The human owner, disclosure, and escalation path are not yet clear.
Learning and improvement
There is little record of attempts, corrections, near misses, or what should change next time.
Practical next move
- Select one bounded, low- or moderate-consequence workflow.
- Write down its purpose, inputs, constraints, human owner, and definition of good.
- Try one AI-assisted step, then review the result against the original evidence.
Common failure mode
Starting with a collection of tools or prompts before defining the work. Curiosity is useful, but it is not evidence of capability.
Ready to move to Exploring when...
You have one repeatable task, basic source and constraint awareness, a human review step, a named owner, and notes about what worked or failed. Continue to Exploring, or take the assessment to establish a broader profile.
Once the work is bounded, use the AAOS stages to move from diagnosis into a controlled workflow.