From ambition to decision
AI Strategy Sprint
A fast, focused sprint to go from AI idea to a concrete, board-ready strategy and roadmap. Practical, focused and immediately actionable, without the two-hundred-slide deck.
experience, impact ↓
20+ years experience
AI in Europe
European brands already running AI in production.
Not my clients. Examples of what happens once AI moves past the pilot stage.
- Klarna
Sweden
AI customer service assistant
- Zalando
Germany
Fashion assistant for product advice
- Financial services
Investment firm
AI strategy and use-case portfolio
- Booking.com
Netherlands
AI Trip Planner for travel planning
- Siemens
Germany
Industrial Copilot for engineering
- Retail
Enterprise retailer
AI-driven vendor selection
- Spotify
Sweden
AI DJ and personalized playlists
- Mercedes-Benz
Germany
Generative voice assistant in the car
- Industrial / B2B
International manufacturer
AI roadmap and leadership
- ING
Netherlands
Generative chatbot for customer queries
- L'Oréal
France
Beauty Genius: personalized advice
- Financial services
Financial services firm
KYC accelerated with AI document analysis
- SAP
Germany
Joule: copilot in business software
- Carrefour
France
Hopla: grocery shopping assistant
- Strategy & AI
SaaS scale-up
AI readiness assessment
- Adyen
Netherlands
AI-driven payment optimization
- Philips
Netherlands
AI in medical imaging
- Proces & productivity
Professional services firm
Internal AI assistant for knowledge workers
Lower end if a Readiness Assessment is already in place, higher end with multiple business units involved. Amounts exclude VAT and travel expenses.
What does the AI Strategy Sprint deliver and what does it cost?
AI Strategy Sprint from Dave Willemstein takes organizations from AI ambition to a board-ready strategy and roadmap. The result is a prioritized use-case roadmap, business case outlines and a governance and operating-model plan, built around four fixed decision points. The sprint takes 4-6 weeks and costs €15,400 - €22,400, excluding VAT and travel expenses.
How long does the AI Strategy Sprint take?
4-6 weeks for AI Strategy Sprint. The program runs across five working sessions built around four fixed decision points: diagnose, prioritize, decide, and ship and govern.
What does the AI Strategy Sprint cost?
€15,400 - €22,400 for AI Strategy Sprint, excluding VAT and travel expenses. A Readiness Assessment already in place brings the price toward the lower end of that range.
Source: Dave Willemstein's rates and typical timelines. Updated: .
Why this comes up
Why sprints work and lengthy programs stall
- Six-month strategy programs produce a document that is already outdated by the time it lands.
- AI changes faster than your decision-making cycle. A sprint forces choices while they still matter.
- The decision-makers sit in the sprint itself, not only in the closing presentation. That saves three rounds of alignment.
- Everything we deliver is built to support decisions, not to impress.
How it works
Four fixed decision points, spread across five working sessions.
Diagnose
What are we actually trying to solve? We break the ambition down into business outcomes you can measure. This usually already reveals that two of the five ambitions contradict each other.
Prioritize
Which use cases deserve money, time and attention? Scoring on value, feasibility, data readiness and change load. The list gets shorter, not longer.
Decide
Build, buy or partner, and why? A substantiated choice per theme, including a TCO order of magnitude and the consequences for your architecture.
Ship and govern
How do we make sure it lands? Operating model, roles, metrics and the governance the AI Act requires, in usable form.
What you get
Concrete. Clear.
Immediately usable.
- Board-ready AI strategy with explicit principles and scope
- Priority matrix: impact versus feasibility, substantiated per use case
- Use-case roadmap with quick wins, medium-term bets and deliberate no-gos
- Business case outlines with value estimates and assumptions
- Risks, dependencies and mitigations, including a risk classification
- Governance, roles and operating-model advice
- The final deck, which you present, not me
Best fit for
Organizations that:
- Wanting to pursue AI seriously but not knowing where to start
- Needing focus and direction for the next 12-18 months
- Valuing fast, independent insight over exhaustive analysis
- Wanting to connect strategy to execution and adoption
Less suitable if
- If there is no mandate yet to make choices: start with an Executive Briefing instead
- If you are mainly looking for capacity to build
The rhythm underneath
From insight
to impact.
Every engagement runs through the same four decision points. Only the depth per step differs.
More on my approach →Diagnose
What are we actually trying to solve?
Prioritize
Which use cases earn money, time and attention?
Decide
Build, buy or partner, and why?
Ship & govern
How do we make sure it actually lands?
For an investment firm we developed an AI roadmap in five weeks with eighteen assessed use cases, three strategic themes and a phased execution plan that was approved in a single board session.
Frequently asked questions
Answers to what you are thinking now.
What is the difference between the sprint and a longer program?
A sprint produces decisions, a program produces documentation. We make the scope explicit upfront and work toward four concrete decision points. Anything outside that scope gets named as a follow-up question rather than pulled in.
Which people from our organization need to be involved?
A sponsor with mandate, someone from the business who knows the P&L, someone from data or IT, and someone from risk or compliance. Four to six people in the core group. Bigger makes it slower, not better.
What if we do not have AI use cases yet?
That is the normal starting point. We start from business outcomes and work back to use cases. Ideas already floating around get folded in, but they are never the starting point.
How independent are you really?
I do not receive commissions, affiliate fees or margin on implementation partners. If I have advised a vendor before or have a relationship with one, I disclose that before we discuss that vendor. That is also stated in the agreement.
Will you present the result to our board?
If you want me there, I will be, for questions. But you present. A strategy your advisor has to explain is not yet yours.
More questions about working together, rates or procurement? See all frequently asked questions →
Ready for impact?
Book a call.
30 minutes. No pitch deck. Just a good conversation about your situation.