Free AI Plan and AI Assessment for Business Owners
Get your free AI plan in 5 minutes.
Answer 10 questions about your business and get a personalized plan: your top quick wins, the guardrails for your industry, and an estimate of the time you could get back. Then decide if you want the full AI Assessment.
How the free plan and the AI Assessment work
By Joe Engelking, CEO. Published November 2026.
What is the free Basic AI Plan?
A short survey that turns your answers into a personalized plan: a readiness score, your top three quick wins with the tools that fit, the guardrails for your industry, and an estimate of the hours you could get back. It is generated instantly and emailed to you.
What is the AI Assessment?
A meeting with Joe to understand how your business runs: operations, staff, tools, bottlenecks and industry rules. Within 3 business days you get a written AI plan that Joe builds and reviews himself, followed by a review call. It costs $999, credited toward any implementation you sign within 30 days.
How are the two different?
The free plan works from ten answers and a library of common wins in your industry. The AI Assessment works from a real conversation about your business, so the recommendations, priorities and numbers are yours, not an estimate.
| Free Basic AI Plan | AI Assessment | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | $999, credited toward any implementation you sign within 30 days |
| Time | About 5 minutes | A meeting with Joe, a written plan within 3 business days, then a review call |
| Built from | Your answers to 10 questions and our industry library | A conversation about how your business really runs: your workflow, staff and tools |
| What you get | Readiness score, top three quick wins, guardrails for your industry, a time and money estimate | A ranked list of opportunities, tool recommendations, setup steps and numbers based on your business |
| Best for | Seeing whether AI is worth pursuing | Deciding what to build, in what order, and what it should cost |
Who should book the AI Assessment?
Owners and managers who see AI mentioned everywhere but cannot tell what applies to their business, teams already using free AI tools without rules, and companies that want a clear, ranked plan before spending money on software or consultants.
What happens when you book the AI Assessment
- Pick a time. Choose a slot on Joe’s calendar. Your survey answers, if you took the survey, come with you.
- We talk. A conversation about how your business runs, who does what, which tools you use and where work gets stuck. It is recorded so nothing is missed.
- You get your written AI plan within 3 business days. Joe builds and reviews every plan: ranked opportunities, tools that fit, setup steps and the numbers behind them.
- Review call. We walk through each recommendation and answer questions.
- You decide. Carry out the plan yourself, or have LME implement it. The $999 is credited toward implementation signed within 30 days.
Ready for the full AI Assessment?
Book a time with Joe, or call 847-496-5196 and we will set it up.
Why an IT company for your AI work
AI tools need access to your email, files and customer records. That makes AI an IT and security question before it is a software question. LME has supported small and mid-sized businesses since 1994, so permissions, backups, security and staff rules are part of the plan from the start. We use AI in our own work at LME, and we offer the AI Assessment to our managed IT clients and to other businesses. For Hartmann Electric, an electrical contractor we support, we helped set up a simple CRM and a project-planning workflow so leads, bids and jobs live in one place.
Want the whole picture? Read our AI consulting overview, or see how our cybersecurity and backup work protects the data AI relies on.
AI assessment questions
Is the Basic AI Plan really free?
Yes. There is no cost and no credit card. You answer 10 questions and get your plan on screen and by email. Joe may follow up to see if the AI Assessment makes sense for you, and you can say no.
Do I need to know anything about AI?
No. The questions are about your business: what you do, where time gets lost, which tools you use and what worries you. We turn those answers into practical next steps in plain language.
Which AI tools will you recommend?
Whichever fits the problem. That may be a business-grade ChatGPT or Claude workspace, an automation tool, meeting transcription or a better CRM. We do not recommend Microsoft Copilot by default, even for Microsoft 365 companies.
Is my information safe?
We use your answers to build your plan and to follow up with you. We do not sell or share them. Part of any AI work we do is keeping client data out of consumer chatbots and cleaning up file permissions first.
Will AI replace my employees?
The tasks we look for are repetitive work such as drafting, sorting, copying and chasing. The goal is to give your people time back. A person reviews anything that reaches a client, a customer or a regulator.
What happens after the AI Assessment?
You get a written plan that ranks the opportunities, names the tools and lists the setup steps. You can carry it out yourself or have LME implement it. The $999 is credited toward any implementation you sign within 30 days.