Can the record be produced on request?
The following items are the evidence a defensible reconstruction requires. Mark each item your organization could produce today. The readout is a reconstructability gap — not a performance verdict.
Reconstructability self-check
AI Evidence Recoverability Assessment
Before reconstructing the investment, determine what evidence can still be recovered. Every AI initiative can be classified along one of four bands. The classification itself is a board-level finding.
The interaction and material system state can be recreated with reasonable confidence.
The board can rely on the underlying evidence when accepting or challenging outcomes.
Prompts, responses, model version, and referenced data are logged with sufficient fidelity to re-execute.
A company may discover that its AI expenditure is financially recorded but operationally unreconstructable.
Questions the original business case may not answer
- 01What was the total cost of the AI initiative?
- 02Which costs were excluded from the original business case?
- 03Where did review, correction, and verification labor accumulate?
- 04Did reported time savings become financial savings?
- 05Did reduced headcount create new vendor, contractor, or cloud expense?
- 06Which systems are still in use?
- 07Which systems are duplicative?
- 08Which assets are owned, licensed, or inaccessible?
- 09Which business outcomes can be independently verified?
- 10Who approved continued spending?
- 11What prevents the system from being shut down?
- 12What value remains recoverable?
A finding is only defensible when the underlying evidence can be produced on request.
Diagnosis precedes reconstruction. Reconstruction precedes recovery.