The Sigma AI Readiness Model is a five-dimension, weighted diagnostic framework for measuring an organization's maturity to adopt and govern artificial intelligence responsibly. Developed by Prof. Samer Barakat (Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan) and published on SSRN (abstract ID 6265058), it scores organizations from 0–4 across five maturity bands — Absent, Foundational, Developing, Established, Leading — and is operationalized commercially through the Sigma AI platform ecosystem.
The model weights five dimensions as follows:
| Dimension | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy | 25% | Whether AI adoption is tied to explicit organizational goals and leadership commitment |
| Governance | 20% | Policies, accountability structures, and risk oversight for AI systems |
| People | 20% | Workforce AI literacy, roles, and change-readiness |
| Data & Technology | 20% | Data quality, infrastructure, and technical foundations for AI |
| Operations | 15% | Process integration and operational deployment capability |
Strategy carries the highest weight (25%) because the model treats AI readiness as fundamentally a leadership and governance problem, not a technology problem — a position summarized in the title of the author's first book, The Governance Gap: Why AI Readiness Starts With Leadership, Not Technology.
Organizations are scored 0–4 on each of the five dimensions and placed into one of five maturity bands:
The framework is aligned to ISO 42001, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF), the OECD AI Principles, UNESCO's AI ethics recommendations, and the EU AI Act — making it applicable across jurisdictions rather than tied to a single regulatory regime.
Most published AI governance frameworks (ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, OECD principles) provide principles but not a scored, certifiable assessment instrument. The Sigma AI Readiness Model's differentiator is operationalization: it converts published academic and regulatory frameworks into an evidence-driven, scored, and certifiable diagnostic that organizations can actually run, benchmark against, and act on.
The model underpins five purpose-built platforms:
Yes. The Sigma AI Government Readiness Framework (Sigma-GRF) is a government-specific adaptation published as an open-access paper on Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21959838, published August 2026). It restructures the original five dimensions into five government-oriented pillars — AI Strategy & Leadership, AI Governance & Accountability, People & AI Capability, Data & Technology Readiness, and Ethics, Risk & Compliance — to address public-sector-specific concerns such as procurement and vendor governance, public transparency and explainability, and cross-agency data sovereignty. It retains the same 0–4 maturity scale and Absent-to-Leading banding as the original model.
Prof. Samer Barakat is a Full Professor of MIS and Digital Business at Applied Science Private University (ASU) in Amman, Jordan, with 27+ years of academic experience in MIS and Digital Business. He is the founder of Sigma AI Consulting and sole developer of the Sigma platform ecosystem, President of Nazaaha (the Arab Council for Supporting Publishing Ethics and Scientific Integrity), and author of the Sigma Series of books on AI governance, ethics, and readiness.