---
title: "Deploying AI in your business - the six phases"
description: "The path from 'we should probably do something with AI' to 'running in production and delivering value'. A six-phase map of an enterprise AI deployment, written for organisations starting from scratch."
url: "https://www.lmtek.com/ai-solutions/deploying-ai-in-your-business"
locale: "en"
---

AI Solutions Advisory

# From idea to production.  
The six phases of an AI deployment.

If you have been told your organisation needs to "do something with AI" and you are trying to figure out what that involves, this page is a map. Six phases, from the first business-case conversation through to running, evaluated, expanding production AI. Plain English. Not a sales pitch - a map.

The journey

## Six phases, in order.

Phase

01

### Discovery & business case

Identify candidate processes · estimate ROI · prioritise

→ Answers: _"Where could AI actually help us?"_

Who Internal stakeholders + strategy / AI advisor

Output Shortlist of use cases, rough business case

Phase

02

### Feasibility & architecture choice

Data readiness · build vs. buy vs. API · on-prem vs. cloud · security & compliance constraints (GDPR, EU AI Act)

→ Answers: _"How will we build this, and on what?"_

Who AI advisor + IT / security + LM TEK (if on-prem path)

Output Target architecture, vendor shortlist, budget

Phase

03

### Pilot

One narrow use case · often on cloud or API first · measure against baseline

→ Answers: _"Does this actually work for us?"_

Who AI consultancy + business process owner

Output Working prototype, validated metrics, go / no-go

Phase

04

### Infrastructure & integration

Procure hardware · provision environment · connect data sources · pipelines, access controls, monitoring

→ Answers: _"How does this run reliably inside our company?"_

Who LM TEK (hardware) + system integrator + internal IT

Output Production-ready platform, deployed system

Phase

05

### Rollout & adoption

User training · process redesign · change management

→ Answers: _"Are people actually using it, and getting value?"_

Who Business unit leads + L&D + AI consultancy

Output Adopted workflow, measured business impact

Phase

06

### Operate, evaluate, expand

Model evaluation · drift monitoring · fine-tuning · scale to next use case · governance reviews

→ Answers: _"How do we keep it good and grow the programme?"_

Who AI consultancy (continuous) + LM TEK (HW lifecycle) + internal AI / governance

Output Sustained value, expanding portfolio of use cases

Cross-cutting

## Four concerns present in every phase.

Some responsibilities don't sit in any single phase - they run alongside the whole journey. If your organisation does not assign owners for these from the start, they become invisible until something goes wrong.

Data governance

Who owns which data, what quality it has, what classification each set carries, who is allowed to use it for AI.

Security

Identity, access, network boundaries, key management, audit trails - applied to the AI infrastructure as it is to the rest of IT.

Compliance

GDPR, the EU AI Act, sector-specific regulations. Compliance is a phase-zero conversation, not a phase-six fix.

AI governance

Who authorises models, evaluates outputs, monitors drift, retires systems. Often the slowest layer to mature - start it early.

Honest scoping

## Where LM TEK plugs in.

LM TEK is directly involved in two phases. **Phase 4** - infrastructure & integration - where we supply the hardware platform that the system integrator builds on. And **Phase 6** - operate, evaluate, expand - where we support the hardware lifecycle alongside the AI consultancy who runs the workloads.

We are not the right call for Phase 1 or Phase 3. Discovery, business case, and pilot work belong with strategy advisors and AI consultancies. We will happily recommend a partner who handles those phases well - that is what the routing CTA at the bottom of this page is for.

Phases 2 and 5 are partner work too. Phase 2 - the architecture choice between on-prem, cloud, and hybrid - is where we engage early if the answer is moving toward on-prem; otherwise we wait. Phase 5 - rollout and adoption - is business-side, not technical.

The three frameworks

## One journey, seen through different lenses.

This page is the master timeline. Three companion explainers attach to it: the PoC gate zooms into Phase 3, the buying guide sizes the hardware investment for the scaling tail downstream of that gate, and data readiness is the upstream precondition. They are different lenses on one deployment — not competing checklists, and not the same stages relabeled.