# AI Use Case One-Pager

> One page, completed **before** anyone estimates the build. Its purpose is to make the cheap
> alternative visible, because that is the comparison most projects never make.
>
> If a section cannot be filled in, that is the finding.

**Use case:** _______________
**Requested by:** _______________  **Owner:** _______________  **Date:** _______

## 1. The problem

**In the user's own words:** _______________

**Who has this problem, and how often:** _______________

**What they do today, and how long it takes:** _______________

**Annual cost of the current approach** (hours × rate, errors, delays): _______________

## 2. The cheap alternative — fill this in first

| Option | Would it work? | Effort | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| A rule, or a few rules | | | ___% |
| A form, or better data capture | | | ___% |
| A report or query | | | ___% |
| Fixing the upstream process | | | ___% |
| Buying an existing product | | | |

**Baseline coverage achievable without AI:** ____%
**Measured, or estimated?** measured / estimated — how: _______________

🔴 If this section is blank, the project is not ready to scope. The most expensive AI projects are
the ones that should have been a rule, a form or a query — and nobody found out because nobody
spent the afternoon.

## 3. What AI would add, in units of work

| | Baseline | With AI |
|---|---|---|
| Cases handled automatically | | |
| **Additional cases per day** | — | |
| Time saved per day | — | |
| Errors avoided per month | — | |

**The incremental benefit, in one sentence:** _______________

Express this as work, not as percentage points. "Eight points more accurate" persuades; "sixteen
documents a day" invites the right comparison.

## 4. Where the errors land

**On which cases will this be least reliable?** _______________

**What does a wrong answer cost on those cases?** _______________

**Does the system fail visibly or silently?** visibly / silently

A system that is accurate on easy cases and unreliable on consequential ones is worse than its
headline number. If the hard cases are also the expensive ones, say so here.

## 5. Data

| | |
|---|---|
| Is the knowledge written down? | yes / no / partly |
| Where | |
| Who owns it and keeps it current | |
| Volume available | |
| Labelled examples available | |
| Legal basis / permission to use it | |
| Personal data involved | yes / no |

**If the knowledge lives in people's heads, this is a documentation project first.** Say so
explicitly rather than proceeding.

## 6. Success

| Metric | Baseline today | Target | How measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |

**What "good enough to ship" means:** _______________
**Who decides that:** _______________

## 7. What it costs to keep

- Inference / usage cost per operation: ____
- Who monitors it: ____
- What happens when it degrades: ____
- Who is accountable for a wrong output: ____
- Review cadence: ____

An AI system is not a project that finishes. If nobody owns the monitoring, it will quietly get
worse and nobody will connect the complaints to the cause.

## 8. Decision

| | |
|---|---|
| Build with AI | |
| Build the cheap alternative first | |
| Do both — rules now, AI if the gap justifies it | |
| Do nothing | |

**Decision:** _______________
**Reasoning in two sentences:** _______________
**What would change this decision:** _______________

## Sign-off

| | Name | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Prepared by | | |
| Business owner | | |
| Decision taken by | | |