Is survey-based AI adoption measurement a real problem or just ours? (i will not promote)

[u/Expert-Birthday7928]

Hello everyone!! I run a ~400-person software services company with 100+ client projects. We needed to measure AI adoption internally and hit a wall: every analytics tool wanted integrations with Jira, GitHub or Slack. For us, that means approval from every client.

So we built a survey-based approach for ourselves. It works for us, but I'm trying to figure out whether this is a real market or just our niche.

Questions:

1. If you're in services, consulting or agencies, do you have the same integration problem?

2. Would you trust survey data over telemetry, or only alongside it?

3. Who owns this problem in your company: HR, CTO, COO, or an AI transformation lead?

4. Would being able to analyze the results with your own AI (Claude, ChatGPT) change anything for you?

Not sharing a name or link. Just looking for honest pushback.

Many thanks all!!

[u/Brufacee]

The client-approval constraint sounds like the strongest reason someone might buy it. Surveys can tell you what people report doing, but I would be careful selling that as measured productivity. Have any other services firms agreed to run the survey and pay for the results?

[u/Expert-Birthday7928 → u/Brufacee]

Really good point on productivity, and I agree. We don't want to claim it measures productivity. It measures adoption, skills and blockers, i.e. where people are and what's stopping them. Productivity would need real delivery data, which is exactly what we can't access.

On paying customers: honestly, not yet. So far it's been us and a few companies in our network trying it for free. That's why I'm posting here, to find out whether the client-approval problem is common enough that someone would pay to get around it. Would that constraint alone be enough for you, or would it need something more?

[u/Brufacee → u/Expert-Birthday7928]

I run a one-person company, so I am not your buyer here. For the firms trying it free, ask what decision they would make differently after seeing the report. If it helps them choose training or unblock a client project, you have something concrete to price. Avoiding integrations alone may not give them a reason to keep paying.

[u/Expert-Birthday7928 → u/Brufacee]

Thanks, this is gold. I'll ask the firms trying it exactly that. If the answer is "nothing," that tells me a lot too.

[u/Brufacee → u/Expert-Birthday7928]

You're welcome. Hope those conversations give you a clearer read on what they'd pay for.

[u/StillBuildingStuff]

Real problem, wrong frame.

The question isn't whether services companies want AI adoption measured. It's whether anyone pays for it, and the buyer isn't who you think. In a services firm the pain lands on delivery leadership: clients asking how AI shows up in their billables, partners defending margins on the work. Surveys feel like HR tooling. Telemetry needs every client's approval, which is the exact integration meeting your company built this to dodge.

The product you actually have is visibility without the integration conversation. That approval constraint is the feature.

And you already have the first customer: yourselves. Run it across your own 100+ projects for one quarter. Then put the results in a client renewal meeting: "here is how AI changed your delivery." If that moves a renewal, you have a product and a price. If it doesn't, you have your answer.

[u/Expert-Birthday7928 → u/StillBuildingStuff]

Really sharp, thanks. "The approval constraint is the feature" and "the buyer is delivery, not HR" both hit home. We're going to run it across our own projects and test it in a renewal conversation. I'll report back if it moves anything.

[u/Nayele_Cumbe]

tbh the bigger risk here is that this might be a feature not a product. survey-based measurement sounds like something any internal ops team could spin up in a spreadsheet. what makes people pay for it vs just doing it themselves?

[u/propelearth]

since you're going to try this in a renewal conversation, i'd keep client names, source code and project details out of the survey responses too. a free-text box can recreate the data-sharing problem you avoided by skipping integrations. agree on what employees can include and who can see individual answers before collecting them.

for the report, separate 'people say they use AI' from an observed change in delivery. your reply already makes that distinction, but it needs to survive into whatever the client sees. i'd also show response counts and missing teams so a high adoption percentage doesn't hide a low response rate.

[u/mahee522]

The client approval problem is the whole product, honestly. Telemetry is better but nobody in services gets that signoff. Run the survey on your own 100 projects for a quarter and take the results into a client renewal meeting. If it lands there, charge for it.