Glossary Strategy & implementation
AI business case
What is an AI business case?
An AI business case weighs the expected return of an AI application against its costs, so you know in advance whether and when the investment pays off.
The return usually comes from time (hours freed up), quality (fewer errors) or revenue (faster follow-up). The costs are the build, the integrations with your systems, the use of AI models and maintenance.
How do you build a business case for AI?
Calculate per process with real figures. First measure the current situation: how much volume, how much time per action, how many errors or how much rework. Estimate which share AI takes over or speeds up and convert that into hours and money. Set the one-off costs (build and integrations) and the running costs (model use and maintenance) against it, in a cautious and an expected scenario. Test the assumptions in a proof of concept before you scale up. That makes clear which application comes first and which can wait.
In an AI audit we make an ROI case per opportunity. What AI costs is covered in our piece on the cost of AI.
Last updated: 20 October 2026