AI Audit for Small Business in Vancouver, BC

An AI readiness assessment for West Coast businesses: where AI pays, whether your data is ready, and the rules your staff need, for a fixed $5,000

By Jason Hanley · Last reviewed 2026-11-14

What is an AI audit?

An AI audit, sometimes called an AI readiness assessment, is a short, fixed-price review of how a small business actually runs. It ends in a written plan: the few processes where AI will pay for itself, an honest "no" on the rest, whether the data each one needs is ready, what each piece would cost to build, and a policy for how your staff use AI in the meantime.

I do it myself. I'm Jason Hanley, I have run Syllogistic Software since 2003, and I have been building with the OpenAI, Anthropic and Google APIs since each one launched. I work from Metro Vancouver, so for businesses in the Lower Mainland and along the West Coast the interviews can happen in your office, your warehouse or your kitchen, not just on a video call.

This page sets out the audit in full. The short version, and the other ways to start, are on the AI services page.

What the audit examines

The audit looks at the work, not at the org chart. Most of what is worth automating is in tasks nobody has written down, so I talk to the people who do them.

Your processes

Where the day goes: documents, email, phone calls, data entry, scheduling, quoting and reporting. Which of those are repetitive, rule-bound and frequent enough for AI to take on, and which need a person's judgment.

Your systems and data

The software you already run, what each process reads and writes, where that data lives, how clean it is, and whether you are allowed to use it for the job.

How AI is used today

Which AI tools your staff already use, on whose accounts, and with what data. In most businesses the answer is "more than the owner thinks," and that is where the first risk sits.

Vendor pitches on your desk

If someone is selling you an AI product, I read the pitch against your processes and your data and tell you what it will and will not do, and what it will cost to run.

The four deliverables

Everything arrives as one written report, organized around four deliverables. It is written to be acted on with me, with another developer, or by your own team.

1. Opportunity map

Every process the audit looked at, with where AI fits, where it does not, and why. Each opportunity names the task, the people it frees up, and the kind of AI that would do it, from reading documents to drafting replies to forecasting demand.

2. Prioritized plan

The opportunities ranked by payback, each with a cost and effort estimate, its monthly running cost, and the one number that will show whether it worked. The plan says what to do first, what to wait on, and what to skip. Measuring that number is covered in how do we measure ROI on an AI project?

3. Data readiness

For each item on the plan, whether the data it needs exists, where it lives, what shape it is in, and whether you may use it. What can be fixed during the project is separated from what needs a decision first. The background is in is our data ready for AI?

4. AI use policy

A one- or two-page policy for your staff: approved tools and plans, which data may and may not go in, human review of output, who owns the policy, and how to ask for a new tool. Why it matters is in do we need an AI policy for our staff?

Process and timeline

From the first interview to the report is usually two to three weeks.

1. Free Pre-Audit

A ten-minute questionnaire about your business and what you hope AI can do. If an audit is not the right next step, I say so and suggest what is. Day one.

2. Kick-off

An hour with the owner or manager to agree which processes and people are in scope, and a short AI policy questionnaire. Within the first week.

3. Interviews

Thirty to sixty minutes each with the people who do the work, remote or on-site in the Lower Mainland, and a look at the systems and data they use. Usually spread over one to two weeks.

4. The report

The four deliverables, within a week of the last interview, and a call to walk through them and answer questions. Then you build it, or you don't.

Price

The audit is $5,000, fixed before it starts, for a remote audit of one location. That covers the kick-off, the interviews, all four deliverables and the walk-through.

Some audits need more: interview days on-site in the Lower Mainland, a second location, or a larger team. Each extra day is quoted at a daily rate before the audit starts, with travel costs where there are any, so the range runs from $5,000 up to $5,000 plus the on-site days you choose. There are no hourly overruns.

If nothing turns out to be worth building, the report says so, and you have spent $5,000 instead of $50,000 finding out.

Canadian business? The build that follows an audit may qualify for BDC LIFT financing or an NRC IRAP contribution.

Opportunity map
Prioritized plan with cost and effort estimates
Data readiness review
AI use policy for your staff
Report within a week of the last interview
Remote, or on-site in the Lower Mainland at a quoted daily rate

BC's PIPA and the federal PIPEDA

A business in British Columbia that puts customer or employee information into an AI tool is handling personal information, and Canadian privacy law applies to that the same way it applies to a filing cabinet. This is a plain-language summary, not legal advice.

Which law applies

Most private-sector businesses in BC fall under the provincial Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), overseen by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC BC). PIPA covers the personal information a business collects, uses and discloses in the province, and it covers employees' information as well as customers'.

The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), overseen by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), applies to federally regulated businesses such as banks, airlines and telecoms, and to personal information that crosses a provincial or national border in the course of commercial activity. A BC business selling online to customers in other provinces, or sending data to an AI service in another country, can be under both for different parts of its work.

What they ask of a business adopting AI

Consent and purpose. Both laws limit personal information to purposes a reasonable person would consider appropriate, with consent for those purposes. Information collected to deliver an order is not automatically available to train a model or profile customers.
Safeguards. Both require reasonable security for the information you hold. Pasting a client file into a personal chatbot account is the kind of gap an AI tool opens.
Service providers outside Canada. Neither law forbids a private business from using an AI vendor outside Canada, but you remain accountable for what you send. That means a business plan with a data processing agreement, settings that keep your data out of training, and telling people their information may be processed outside the country.
Access and accuracy. People can ask what you hold about them and have it corrected, and that includes what an AI system holds or produced about them.
Breaches. PIPEDA requires a business to report a breach that creates a real risk of significant harm to the OPC, notify the people affected, and keep a record of every breach. As of the review date above, PIPA has no equivalent mandatory reporting rule, and the OIPC BC encourages businesses to report breaches voluntarily.

How the audit addresses them

The data readiness deliverable records, for each item on the plan, what personal information it touches, which law applies, and whether the purpose it was collected for covers the new use. The AI use policy turns the safeguards and the cross-border rules into plain instructions for your staff: which tools, on which plans, with which data. Where the data should stay in Canada, the plan prices a Canadian hosting region or a model that runs on your own hardware.

Sources: OIPC BC, Personal Information Protection Act (BC), OPC on PIPEDA, Principles for responsible generative AI from Canada's federal, provincial and territorial privacy commissioners. Checked 2026-11-14.

Working with West Coast businesses

Most businesses here are not tech startups. They are in construction, real estate, hospitality, resources, film, health and professional services, and the AI wins in those businesses are in documents, scheduling and the inbox. More on working with local clients is on the Vancouver page.

Businesses in Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey and the rest of the Lower Mainland can have the interviews done in person. Further along the West Coast, the audit runs remotely with on-site days where they help.

Questions about the AI Audit

What is an AI audit for a small business?

A short, fixed-price review of how your business actually runs, ending in a written plan: which processes AI can take on, which it should not, whether your data is ready for it, what each piece would cost to build, and the rules your staff follow when they use AI. It answers where AI fits before you spend money on a tool or a vendor.

How much does an AI audit cost?

$5,000 for the standard audit, done remotely, with the price fixed before it starts. On-site interview days in the Lower Mainland, a second location, or a larger team to interview add a daily rate quoted in advance, plus travel where there is any. There are no hourly overruns.

How long does an AI audit take?

Usually two to three weeks from the first interview to the report. The report itself arrives within a week of the last interview. The main variable is how quickly the people being interviewed can find thirty to sixty minutes each.

What do we get at the end?

A written report with four parts: an opportunity map of where AI fits in your business, a prioritized plan with a cost and effort estimate for each item, a data readiness review of the data each item needs, and an AI use policy for your staff. You can act on it with me, with another developer, or not at all.

Does BC's PIPA or the federal PIPEDA apply to my business?

A private-sector business in BC is generally governed by PIPA for the personal information it collects, uses and discloses in the province, including its employees' information. PIPEDA applies to federally regulated businesses such as banks, airlines and telecoms, and to personal information that crosses a provincial or national border in the course of commercial activity. Many BC businesses deal with both, and the audit notes which applies to each process it looks at.

Can we use ChatGPT or other US-hosted AI tools with customer data?

Neither PIPA nor PIPEDA forbids a private business from using a service provider outside Canada, but you stay responsible for the information you send. That means a business plan with a data processing agreement, settings that keep your data out of model training, reasonable security, and telling customers their information may be processed outside Canada. Where that is not enough, there are Canadian hosting regions and models that run on your own hardware.

Is the audit only for businesses in Vancouver?

No. Most audits are done remotely, for clients across Canada and the US. Businesses in Metro Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and elsewhere on the West Coast can also have interviews done in person, which helps when the work is physical or happens on a shop floor.

Do we have to hire you to build what the audit recommends?

No. The report is written so that you, your own team or another developer can act on it. If you want me to build something from it, I can, with no hand-off to a third party, and if the answer is that nothing is worth building yet, the report says so.

Let's talk

Tell me about your business and the process you would most like to get rid of, and I'll tell you honestly whether an audit is the right next step.

Get in touch or email contact@sylsft.com