SIMA360 is a business AI capability framework that provides structured guidance for assessing, understanding, and strengthening the business conditions needed to use AI reliably.

It examines five interconnected domains: Strategy, Governance, Data, People, and Technology. Rather than evaluating a particular AI product, SIMA360 looks at the business surrounding the technology.

Rather than prescribing a single methodology, SIMA360 helps businesses diagnose capability gaps, determine what requires attention, and select improvement actions appropriate to their goals, risks, and circumstances.

SIMA360 is a framework, not a software product or prescriptive methodology. It provides a structured model and practical guidance for understanding, assessing, and improving business AI capability. Supporting tools, assessments, resources, and training help businesses apply that guidance to their own circumstances.

It is not another AI platform that needs to be integrated into your technology environment. Its purpose is to help you understand your business’s AI capabilities, identify weaknesses, prioritize improvements, and systematically strengthen them.

No. You can begin with the SIMA360 assessment without installing software or purchasing technology.

The assessment provides an entry point into the framework. Businesses that want to go further can use additional SIMA360 diagnostic, implementation, training, and advisory services.

SIMA360 is the framework — the concepts, structure, guidance, and supporting components for understanding and improving business AI capability.

The AI Rush is the book that explains the business problem SIMA360 addresses, the reasoning behind the framework, and how its concepts can be applied.

SIMA-Probe is the diagnostic capability, with assessments that help businesses determine where they currently stand and identify areas requiring attention.

Think of the book as explaining the thinking, SIMA360 as the framework that organizes it, and SIMA-Probe as the assessment that turns it into a diagnosis you can act on.

They are the five major components of SIMA360:

• SIMA-Core™ — The underlying model. It defines the five domains and six capability levels used to understand business AI capability.
• SIMA-Probe™ — The diagnostic component. It assesses observable business behaviors to identify strengths, weaknesses, and capability gaps.
• SIMA-Flow™ — The improvement guidance. It helps businesses translate assessment findings into priorities, select appropriate actions, and evaluate progress. It provides structure without prescribing a single implementation path.
• SIMA-Kit™ — The implementation resources. It provides practical tools, templates, and guidance for putting improvements into practice.
• SIMA-Ascend™ — The learning component. It develops the knowledge and skills leaders, teams, and practitioners need to apply SIMA360 effectively.

In simple terms: Core defines it. Probe diagnoses it. Flow guides improvement. Kit helps you act. Ascend builds capability.

The free assessment takes approximately 15 minutes and provides an initial view of your business’s AI capabilities across the five SIMA360 domains.

Your results help reveal where business conditions may be supporting AI adoption—and where weaknesses may create inconsistent results, operational risk, or barriers to scaling AI successfully.

The free assessment is intended as a practical starting point, not a substitute for a comprehensive business assessment.

Yes. The introductory assessment is free and does not require you to purchase consulting, training, or other SIMA360 services.

Its purpose is to give you useful insight into your business’s current position and help you determine whether deeper analysis would be valuable.

Either can provide value, but they answer somewhat different questions.

An individual assessment reveals how one person perceives the business’s capabilities. Having several leaders or stakeholders complete the assessment can be even more informative because differences between their answers may reveal business ambiguity or misalignment.

For more comprehensive assessments, input from multiple roles and functions provides a stronger picture of how the business actually operates.

SIMA360 can be particularly valuable before large-scale AI deployment.

Businesses do not need production AI systems to evaluate whether their strategy, governance, data, people, and technology are prepared for AI. Identifying weaknesses before AI becomes operational can be considerably less expensive than discovering them after AI-dependent processes have already been deployed.

Start by diagnosing where you actually stand, not by picking a tool. Most small businesses trying to figure out how to use AI jump straight to a product decision — which model, which vendor — before knowing whether their strategy, governance, data, people, and technology are ready to support it.

SIMA360’s free assessment gives you that starting point in about 15 minutes: a clear picture of where your business is strong, where it isn’t, and what to fix first — before you commit to any particular AI tool for your small business.

The free SIMA360 assessment takes approximately 15 minutes.

More comprehensive assessments require additional information and stakeholder participation because they examine business behavior in greater depth.

There is no universal timetable.

SIMA360 capability levels describe how a business operates; they are not stages awarded after a prescribed amount of time. Some improvements can occur quickly, while others may require changes to governance, decision rights, data practices, business skills, or technology.

The objective is not simply to “move up a level.” It is to develop the capabilities needed to support the business’s AI objectives and risk profile.

Assessment can be performed at a point in time, but business capability is not static.

AI technologies change. Business strategies change. Regulations evolve. Employees gain experience, new systems are introduced, and businesses place AI into increasingly consequential processes.

SIMA360 therefore treats capability improvement as an iterative process of assessment, prioritization, improvement, and reassessment rather than a one-time certification exercise.

That depends on what the assessment identifies.

The initial assessment requires very little time. A broader improvement effort may involve workshops, targeted training, governance changes, data improvements, or changes to existing processes.

SIMA360 is designed to prioritize the weaknesses that matter rather than launch a large transformation program simply for the sake of adopting a framework.

Both models are possible.

Businesses can work directly with SIMA360 or use qualified consultants and partners who incorporate the framework into broader AI strategy, governance, transformation, or business improvement engagements.

This also allows consulting businesses to use SIMA360 as a structured diagnostic and improvement framework with their own clients.

Yes.

SIMA360 is designed so businesses can understand and apply the framework themselves. The book, assessments, SIMA-Kit resources, and SIMA-Ascend learning materials support self-directed use of the framework.

Outside assistance can be valuable when a business wants an independent assessment, needs help resolving cross-functional issues, or wants experienced facilitation for a larger improvement initiative.

SIMA-Ascend is the education and capability-development component of SIMA360.

It helps leaders, practitioners, consultants, and teams understand both the framework and the business practices needed to improve AI capability.

Training is not required to begin using SIMA360 or to take the free assessment. It becomes more valuable when businesses want people across multiple roles to develop a consistent understanding of the framework and how to apply it.

Dr. Charles Suscheck is the creator of SIMA360 and author of The AI Rush. He is a computer scientist, educator, consultant, and professional trainer with extensive experience helping businesses connect technology, business practices, and business strategy.

His role includes continued development of the SIMA360 framework, research and thought leadership, education, practitioner development, and advisory work with businesses applying the framework.

You can begin with SIMA360 at no cost. The introductory assessment is free.

Businesses that want deeper analysis or assistance can choose paid offerings such as comprehensive assessments, training, implementation resources, and consulting services.

These are optional. You do not need to purchase consulting or training to use the SIMA360 framework — SIMA360 gives you the structure to build AI maturity yourself, without an army of consultants.

See the Pricing page for current pricing.

Yes. SIMA360 can be used directly by businesses evaluating their own AI capabilities as well as by consulting and advisory firms applying the framework with clients.

Partner and consulting-firm arrangements reflect that broader commercial use and may include practitioner resources, training, licensing, or other support. Contact info@sima360.org for partner and consultant information.

No.

The five domains—Strategy, Governance, Data, People, and Technology—matter regardless of business size. What appropriate capability looks like, however, should be proportional to the business.

A small company does not need the governance bureaucracy of a multinational corporation. It still needs to know who can make AI-related decisions, what data can be used, how AI-generated outputs should be evaluated, and where human oversight is required.

SIMA360 evaluates the capability required for your environment, rather than assuming every business should operate the same way.

In practice, the ideal fit is a small or mid-size business early in AI adoption. That’s exactly the environment where a maturity gap causes the most damage, and where a business is least likely to have a dedicated AI governance team already in place.

No. SIMA360 is industry-independent because it evaluates business capabilities rather than prescribing a particular technology architecture or industry process.

The same five domains apply across industries, although the practices required within them may differ considerably according to regulation, risk, business size, business model, and the consequences of AI-assisted decisions.

Many AI frameworks concentrate primarily on governance, risk, compliance, technology, or responsible-AI principles. Those are important, but they represent only part of the business system in which AI operates.

SIMA360 examines five interdependent domains: Strategy, Governance, Data, People, and Technology. Its premise is that weakness in one domain can constrain the effectiveness of the others.

SIMA360 also emphasizes observable business behavior rather than aspiration. The question is not simply whether a policy, committee, strategy, or technology exists. The question is whether the business can consistently make, govern, explain, and improve AI-enabled decisions in practice.

That makes SIMA360 not only a model for describing business capability, but also a diagnostic framework and a structured approach for deciding what to improve next.