AIDE Development Plan
AIDE will follow a structured, evidence-led development pathway designed to reduce risk, test the proposition before major capital is committed, and proceed only where the evidence supports progression.
Structured, Evidence-Led Development Pathway
AIDE’s development model is deliberately phased so that funding, technical work, owner evidence and commercial decisions remain aligned. Each phase answers a different question. Progression is not automatic.
The Three Phases
Phase 1 — Proof of Concept
Phase 2 — MVP Pilot Phase
Phase 3 — Market Release
Phase 1 – Proof of Concept
The Proof of Concept will test whether AIDE’s underlying proposition is strong enough to justify building a working product. Accounting data provides the diagnostic foundation. Phase 1 will test whether AIDE can reliably identify meaningful, business-specific signals from that data and whether adding selected operational information materially improves the usefulness of the resulting interpretation. The initial operational sources being tested are expected to include point-of-sale data and, where applicable, rostering information.
Key Outcomes
- Validate reliable access to relevant accounting data
- Test business-specific risk, opportunity and mixed-signal interpretation
- Assess whether selected operational data materially improves the accounting-derived result
- Test whether SME owners understand, accept and would realistically use the combined-source proposition
- Assess practical connection, consent, onboarding and price trade-offs
- Test privacy, security, legal and professional-boundary requirements
- Assess intermediary and referral pathways
- Define the bounded product configuration to be taken forward if the evidence supports progression
At the conclusion of Phase 1, the evidence will be assessed under AIDE’s Go/Abandon Threshold Evaluation.
A GO opens the pathway to Phase 2.
An ABANDON decision ends the present AIDE development pathway.
Phase 2 – MVP Pilot Phase
Phase 2 combines product build and controlled real-world testing. If Phase 1 produces a GO decision, AIDE will build a bounded Minimum Viable Product based on the configuration supported by the evidence and test it with a controlled hospitality-first user group. The product will not operate on accounting data alone. The tested public-facing product will combine accounting with at least one relevant operational source.
Key Outcomes
- Build the evidence-supported AIDE product configuration
- Implement the required accounting and operational-data connections
- Deliver timely, plain-English business interpretation to participating SME owners
- Test usability, trust, relevance and continued use in real operating conditions
- Assess onboarding, consent, support and interaction friction
- Test reliability, privacy, security and operational controls
- Gather evidence on adoption, retention and commercial viability
- Refine intermediary and market-access pathways
Before live Pilot activity begins, AIDE will complete an internal readiness assessment covering operational safety, privacy, security, accuracy, consent, support and incident controls.
Phase 3 – Market Release
Phase 3 will be considered only after the MVP Pilot evidence has been assessed. The purpose of this phase is to decide whether AIDE is sufficiently useful, trusted, technically reliable and commercially viable to move beyond controlled testing.
- Initial commercial market entry
- Refine pricing and customer-support arrangements
- Expand validated channel and referral pathways
- Broaden hospitality-market deployment
- Assess additional SME sectors
- Consider further operational-data integrations where they add sufficient value
- Progressive strengthening of infrastructure, security and support capability
Market Release is not assumed in advance. Its scope, timing and funding will be determined from the evidence generated during the MVP Pilot Phase.
The Governing Principle
No capital ahead of evidence.
AIDE is being developed in stages so that each major commitment is supported by evidence from the stage before it.