A buyer calculates what will keep running once he takes over the keys. Until recently, that was mainly a question about people: who does what, and what happens if that person leaves. That question still exists, but a second layer has settled underneath it. Part of the work that could previously only be done by people can now be taken over by AI, partly with human oversight, partly not at all yet. That does not change the revenue and not the profit on paper. It changes the weight a buyer assigns to each value driver. You can read more about this in does a buyer buy your people or your way of working.
The shift does not proceed evenly. In one company, part of the administration, planning or customer communication has already been set up with AI, with someone reviewing and correcting the outcome. In another company, the same work still lies entirely with people, not out of unwillingness but because the process cannot be separated from who carries it out there. That difference does not lie in the sector or the size. It lies in how the work is structured: is the knowledge held in a system or in a head, is the customer relationship laid down in a process or in a person. Companies where the former applies see their value drivers move differently than companies where the latter applies.
Eight drivers together determine how a buyer looks at the price. Four of them shift noticeably due to what AI takes over.
Owner dependency weighs the heaviest. If tasks tied to the owner or to a small team can partly be done by AI with oversight, the company becomes less of an extension of one person. What that means for transferability is explained in what succession readiness means for the price a buyer offers.
Profit quality changes in character, not only in size. A saving that polishes up last year's result counts differently for a buyer if that saving is firmly embedded in the process than if it depends on one tool, one contract or one supplier who could change the terms tomorrow. How you substantiate that distinction is covered in how you demonstrate a saving achieved by AI with evidence, and what happens if that saving is tied to an external party, in what happens to the value if the work is tied to a supplier.
Process value and revenue recurrence follow a similar logic: documented ways of working weigh more heavily than ways of working that exist only in someone's head, and that weight shifts further as it becomes clear which part of that work AI can take over and which part remains human work.
The value scan gives a maturity score per driver with the evidence on which that score rests, and an owner-dependency index that indicates how much of the company leans on one person. That is a snapshot, built from what can be demonstrated today: contracts, recurring revenue, documented processes, documented oversight of work carried out by AI.
The uncertainty lies mainly in the future of that evidence. A score that is high today because a process is well documented says nothing about whether that process will still work the same way in two years: technology changes, suppliers change terms, and what is still human work now may shift to AI with oversight or the other way around. The scan does not provide a prediction of that shift and no guarantee that a task will actually be taken over. It provides a two-year calendar indicating which drivers are workable toward the exit moment, not which outcome is certain.
An outcome also says nothing without the context of the sector and the type of buyer. A strategic buyer weighs owner dependency differently than a financial buyer who mainly looks at profit quality. The scan makes the eight drivers and their relative weight visible; what a specific buyer does with that remains up to that buyer.
The scan says nothing about who in the company should stay or leave. What an employer does with the deployment of staff is up to the employer, along with the legal requirements that come with it. This page and the scan are about what work is worth to a buyer, not about who should do that work. Anyone considering personnel decisions based on these insights would do well to seek separate advice on their own legal obligations, and other legal matters also need to be in order before a sale can proceed; an overview is provided in which legal matters need to be in order for a sale.
The underlying question - which work in this company can genuinely be taken over by AI and which work remains human work - is answered per task in the work scan of FTE TO AI.
To see which of the eight drivers is pressing down on your price the most today, there is the free value check: eight short questions, one per driver, giving you an immediate picture of where the greatest pressure lies. The full value scan, with maturity scores, evidence per driver and the two-year calendar, is under construction.