Is Your Business
Ready for AI?

An AI Readiness Assessment evaluates whether your business has the policies, data controls, and workflows needed to safely adopt tools like Microsoft Copilot and AI automation. For SMBs across Ohio, this assessment helps reveal blind spots—like shadow AI, compliance risks, or gaps in data protection—that often go unnoticed. With more than 60% of small businesses already experimenting with AI tools (U.S. Chamber of Commerce), an assessment ensures you adopt AI safely, not blindly.

The goal isn’t to overwhelm you—it’s to give you clarity. You’ll learn where you’re strong and where guardrails are needed. After completing Securafy’s assessment, you can also book a free AI-Readiness Session with our team to walk through your results and get tailored recommendations for your business.

Achieving an “Advanced” score in the assessment is the first requirement, but the badge isn’t issued automatically. To maintain credibility and prevent misuse, Securafy verifies each Advanced result through a short live session with an AI & cybersecurity expert. This ensures the score reflects real-world practices in security, compliance, and governance—key for Ohio SMBs facing HIPAA, PCI, FTC Safeguards, or cyber insurance obligations. Businesses that qualify use the badge on their website, proposals, and LinkedIn as a trust marker showing they follow responsible AI principles. If you’re close but not fully eligible, we’ll outline your fastest path to meet the verification standard.

An AI Use Policy protects your business from accidental data exposure, misinformation, or compliance violations. Without one, employees may paste regulated or client-sensitive data into public tools, which can be stored or reused by the platform. This risk is especially critical for Ohio SMBs in healthcare, legal, and financial sectors where HIPAA, PCI, and FTC rules apply.

A strong policy clarifies allowed tools, approved workflows, and required human review. Most SMBs don’t know where to start, which is why Securafy often helps businesses create lightweight, practical AI policies—not enterprise bloat. After completing your assessment, you can discuss your policy gaps with one of our experts during your AI-Readiness Session.

Public AI tools process data externally, meaning anything employees enter—client notes, invoices, personal information—may be stored or used to train the model. This creates compliance gaps for Ohio organizations subject to HIPAA, PCI, or contractual confidentiality. With 24% of breaches caused by human error (IBM), unregulated AI use becomes a new attack surface.

The solution is structured control: data classification, DLP, approved tools, and employee training. Securafy helps SMBs implement these guardrails in a way that matches their size, not enterprise complexity. If your assessment flags data-risk areas, your AI-Readiness Session will include specific fixes you can apply immediately.

The biggest risks include accidental data leaks, employees using unapproved AI tools, unverified AI-generated outputs, and vendors enabling AI features without your knowledge. For highly regulated Ohio SMBs, these issues can escalate into failed audits or financial penalties. Gartner reports that over 41% of companies have already experienced AI-related data exposure—often unknowingly.

Guardrails such as AI policies, audit logs, human review, and DLP make adoption safe and predictable. If your assessment reveals risk gaps, Securafy can help you prioritize what to fix first during your AI-Readiness Session—usually starting with low-effort, high-impact controls.

Shadow AI occurs when employees use unapproved AI tools—usually to save time—without IT oversight. Signs include AI-written emails, inconsistent writing styles, or AI-generated documents appearing unexpectedly. According to Cisco, 69% of organizations report unapproved AI use by employees.

The easiest and safest AI wins involve tasks with low risk: meeting summaries, ticket notes, email drafts, and simple internal documents. These help Ohio SMBs immediately reclaim time without touching sensitive data. McKinsey found that AI can automate up to 30% of repetitive administrative work, giving employees back hours each week.

To start safely, choose internal tasks, require human review, and document your workflows. Securafy’s assessment highlights the fastest wins for your business. If you want help implementing them, you can book an AI-Readiness Session to build a starter roadmap with one of our experts.

AI increases your organization’s digital footprint, which directly impacts compliance obligations under HIPAA, PCI, FTC, and NIST/CIS frameworks. Without proper oversight, AI can process sensitive data without leaving an audit trail—making compliance verification nearly impossible. The FTC has already clarified that careless AI handling can be considered an “unfair or deceptive practice.”

Readiness ensures your controls, logs, identity protections, and policies evolve with your AI usage. If your assessment flags compliance gaps, your follow-up AI-Readiness Session with Securafy can help you align your AI usage with your regulatory requirements without over-engineering your environment.

Safe early automations include ticket triage, SOP drafting, alert summarization, and basic workflows for teams like support, admin, and operations. Many Ohio SMBs see immediate value from automating intake and triage work without exposing client or regulated data. Benchmarks show that AI-assisted triage can reduce resolution times by 20–40%, improving both productivity and customer experience.

To implement automation safely, isolate non-sensitive tasks, test outputs, and require human oversight. Securafy helps SMBs run small pilots first so automation becomes predictable rather than risky. After your assessment, your AI-Readiness Session can include recommended pilot ideas for your environment.

An AI roadmap outlines your goals, identifies safe use cases, assigns responsibility, and sets quarterly review cycles. Businesses with formal AI strategies are three times more likely to see ROI (Harvard Business Review). For SMBs in Ohio, a roadmap prevents random tool adoption and ensures security, compliance, and productivity stay aligned.

Start by defining success metrics, selecting 1–2 pilot projects, and building guardrails like an AI policy, tool registry, and documented processes. Securafy’s assessment results map directly into a starter roadmap, and during your AI-Readiness Session, our team can help refine priorities based on your industry, risk level, and business goals.

An AI-aware incident response plan outlines how to detect misuse, identify exposed data, isolate affected tools, revoke access, and notify impacted parties. Ohio SMBs handling regulated data need this because regulators may request evidence showing how AI-generated or AI-processed content was handled during an incident.

To modernize your IR plan, add triggers for AI misuse, ensure audit logs capture AI-related activity, and assign responsibility for containment and review. Many SMBs simply extend old IR plans without accounting for AI-specific risks, leaving gaps. Your assessment highlights these blind spots, and your AI-Readiness Session can help you strengthen your IR playbook to reflect today’s AI landscape.

Businesses should review their AI tools every quarter to ensure they are still secure, still compliant, and still producing measurable value. AI platforms evolve rapidly—features change, vendors update data policies, and new risks emerge. For Ohio SMBs operating under HIPAA, PCI, or FTC requirements, a quarterly review ensures that AI tools don’t accidentally drift into non-compliance or introduce new vulnerabilities. Gartner notes that 70% of AI governance issues stem from outdated oversight, not from the initial setup.

A good review checks three things: risk (data exposure), performance (is it actually helping?), and ROI (time or cost savings). Many SMBs skip these reviews and end up with “AI sprawl,” where tools overlap or silently create risk. Securafy’s AI-Readiness Assessment helps identify where quarterly reviews are most critical, and after completing it, SMBs can book a short AI-Readiness Session to get a simple, repeatable quarterly review checklist tailored to their environment.

Employees should receive short, practical training that covers safe data handling, recognizing AI “hallucinations,” choosing approved tools, and understanding what information should never be entered into public AI systems. For SMBs across Ohio—especially in healthcare, legal, and financial industries—training should also include compliance-specific examples to prevent accidental HIPAA, PCI, or FTC violations. According to Cisco, over 82% of AI-related incidents are caused by improper employee use, not by the tools themselves.

Effective training can be done in under an hour and should include safe prompting, do/don’t examples, and clear rules for human review. Many SMBs overcomplicate training or rely on generic YouTube videos, which leads to gaps. Securafy’s assessment identifies which teams need training most urgently, and businesses can follow up with a free AI-Readiness Session to get a starter deck and internal training script they can use with their staff.

AI improves IT support efficiency by automating ticket triage, summarizing issues, generating SOP steps, and correlating alerts—offloading repetitive admin tasks that slow down support teams. This is especially valuable for resource-stretched SMBs in Ohio, where faster response times mean less downtime and lower operational costs. Studies show that AI-assisted triage can reduce IT resolution times by 20–40%, freeing technicians to focus on higher-impact projects.

The safest way to start is by automating low-risk internal tasks: categorizing tickets, drafting responses, or generating documentation from logs. A common mistake is jumping straight into client-facing automation without human review, which can lead to inaccurate responses or missed security signals. Securafy already uses this type of automation internally, and SMBs can learn how to adopt similar workflows by booking an AI-Readiness Session after their assessment.

A safe AI pilot starts small, uses non-sensitive data, has documented boundaries, and requires human review for all outputs. A good SMB pilot lasts 30 days, targets one workflow (like summarizing meetings or triaging tickets), and uses only approved, business-grade AI tools. The goal is to test whether the tool is reliable, secure, and actually reduces workload without risking compliance issues. Pilots are especially important for Ohio SMBs dealing with regulated data, where accidental exposure can trigger audits or fines.

Successful pilots follow a simple checklist: pick one task, limit data scope, assign an owner, document the workflow, measure results, and review risks at the end. The biggest mistake SMBs make is rolling out AI company-wide without testing. Securafy’s assessment identifies which processes are best suited for a safe pilot, and your AI-Readiness Session can include a personalized pilot blueprint.

Yes—Microsoft 365 includes several built-in protections such as MFA, Conditional Access, Data Loss Prevention (DLP), sensitivity labels, Identity Protection, and audit logging that directly support safe AI usage (including Microsoft Copilot). These features help ensure only approved users access AI features and that sensitive data is not accidentally exposed. For Ohio SMBs handling regulated data, these tools form the foundation of secure AI adoption. Microsoft reports that businesses using MFA alone block 99.2% of account compromise attempts.

To maximize AI safety, SMBs should enable baseline protections: MFA, Conditional Access policies, DLP templates, and sensitivity labels. Many businesses incorrectly believe these features are “automatic,” when in fact, most require configuration. Securafy frequently helps SMBs activate these controls properly, and your AI-Readiness Session can include recommended M365 configurations based on your assessment results.