> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kowalah.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Operating model overview

> The AI Operating Model is a living map of how your company works and how AI is changing it, built from units, processes, and steps.

The AI Operating Model is a living map of how your company actually works, and how AI is changing it. It sits alongside the rest of the platform as the company-level picture that everything else hangs off. Opportunities, deliverables, and adoption all connect back to it.

Where projects and Expert Requests track the *work Kowalah delivers*, the operating model tracks *how your business runs* — the processes that persist for years while tools and initiatives come and go. It gives every leader a shared view of where AI is landing today, where it should land next, and what that is worth.

<Note>
  The operating model is built with your Kowalah team during discovery and the Vision Map Workshop, then kept live by you and your Kowalah partner. You do not start from a blank canvas.
</Note>

## The building blocks

Your operating model is made of three nested things.

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Units" icon="network">
    A tree of the parts of your company: the group, its divisions, functions, regions, country units, product lines, and sites. Each unit has a named leader.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Processes" icon="workflow">
    The recurring work a unit owns, such as month-end close, sales pipeline management, or field-service dispatch. Each process is owned by a named person.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Steps" icon="list-checks">
    The handful of coarse stages inside a process (5 to 15, never a detailed flowchart). Each step carries an AI disposition.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

The map is deliberately **coarse**. The point is not to document your company in exhaustive detail. It is to give leaders a shared picture they can actually act on.

## The four dispositions

Every step carries a **disposition**: who or what does the work today.

| Disposition       | What it means                                                                   |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Human**         | A person does the work, with no meaningful AI leverage.                         |
| **AI-assisted**   | A person does the work with AI helping, for example drafting with Claude.       |
| **Automated**     | Deterministic automation with no judgement, for example an RPA bot or a script. |
| **AI-autonomous** | An agent does the work end to end, and a person handles the exceptions.         |

Each step also has a **target disposition**: where that step is heading. The gap between a step's *current* and *target* disposition is a redesign opportunity. Taken together across your whole company, those gaps are your AI backlog, ranked by where the value is rather than by whatever is easiest.

<Tip>
  A step with no target set simply means "no change planned right now." That is a valid and common state. Not every step should become autonomous.
</Tip>

## AI coverage

**AI coverage** is the single number that summarises a unit or process: the share of its steps where the current disposition is anything other than Human. It rolls up the tree, so you can see coverage for one process, a whole division, or the entire company, and use colour to spot where AI has and has not yet landed.

Coverage answers "where is AI in our business?" It is a starting point, not a scorecard. What matters is whether the work is getting better, which is what KPIs on a process are for.

## Who uses it

The same map serves four altitudes, each with a different job. You land at your own altitude and see the slice that is relevant to you, while being able to explore the whole company map read-only.

| Altitude                   | What they do here                                                                       |
| -------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Individual contributor** | See the steps they are part of, and raise pain points and ideas.                        |
| **Manager**                | See their team's processes and coverage, and improve the processes they own.            |
| **Senior leader**          | Own a portfolio of processes, set targets and KPIs, and drive the redesign backlog.     |
| **C-suite**                | See coverage rolled up by business unit and read the trajectory of the whole programme. |

Your altitude is set by your **position**, which your organization admin assigns. See [navigating the map](/platform/operating-model/navigating-the-map) for how this shapes what you see.

## How it connects to the rest of the platform

The operating model is the "why" behind the delivery work you already track:

* A redesign gap on a step can become a real **[Opportunity](/platform/opportunities)**, and from there a **[Deliverable](/platform/projects/deliverables)** in a Kowalah-managed project.
* **[Training](/training/overview)** feeds it. Trained people spot more opportunities, and feedback surfaces new ones.
* **[Accelerators](/platform/accelerators)** and agents are what *implement* a step once its disposition shifts.

See [from map to delivery](/platform/operating-model/from-map-to-delivery) for how a gap on the map turns into delivered work.

## What's next

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Navigating the map" icon="compass" href="/platform/operating-model/navigating-the-map">
    Find your way around units, the map, and your cockpit
  </Card>

  <Card title="Processes and steps" icon="workflow" href="/platform/operating-model/processes-and-steps">
    Read a process, its steps, dispositions, and KPIs
  </Card>

  <Card title="Owning and improving a process" icon="pencil" href="/platform/operating-model/owning-and-improving">
    Edit steps, set targets, and suggest changes
  </Card>

  <Card title="From map to delivery" icon="git-pull-request-arrow" href="/platform/operating-model/from-map-to-delivery">
    Turn a redesign gap into real delivered work
  </Card>
</CardGroup>