A buyer doesn't buy the number of people on the payroll. A buyer buys what keeps running if three of those people don't show up tomorrow. That's a different question than the one most owners ask themselves, and it's precisely the question a due diligence answers first. Not because a buyer is distrustful, but because the price he pays contains an assumption about continuity. That assumption stands or falls with who holds the work in their head and who has the process in the system.
AI is taking over tasks. Not everywhere, not all at once, and not without oversight. In some companies this is already organized: a task that used to rest with one person is now a process with an AI step and a checkpoint where someone approves or rejects with reason. In other companies that same task still exists entirely as work tied to key people, not because it can't be done differently, but because no one has worked out what can and can't run automatically. The difference rarely lies in the sector. It lies in whether someone has ever looked per task: can this be done by a system, partly with oversight, or does this remain human work. Companies that have done this can show a buyer that a process carries the value. Companies that haven't often can't make that distinction themselves, and therefore can't make it to a buyer either.
Owner dependency is the driver that reacts most sharply to this shift, but not the only one. A saving that arises because one employee happens to work very efficiently is something different from a saving that lies in the process itself, repeatable and transferable. A buyer does not value those two things equally, even if the same margin appears on paper. This touches on profit quality: how you substantiate a margin improved by AI is then not just an accounting question but a question of whether that margin travels with the business if the person leaves. The same applies to customer concentration: if three customers together form the largest part of revenue and that relationship runs through one account manager, what is customer concentration and why does a buyer count it is inseparable from the question of who actually carries out the work for those customers.
The value scan works with eight drivers that buyers weigh. Each driver receives a maturity score with evidence: not an impression, but a substantiation that can be traced back to what is factually present in the company, in documentation, in systems, in recorded process. In addition there is the owner-dependency index, which separately shows how much of the value falls away or becomes uncertain as soon as the owner or a key person is no longer available. And there is a two-year calendar that shows step by step what can be demonstrated between now and an exit moment.
What the scan does not do is predict. A maturity score is a snapshot based on what is demonstrable, not a guarantee that a buyer will apply the same weighting. Every buyer has their own priorities, and the score on a driver such as contract structure mainly says something about how transferable that component is now, not about what it will ultimately yield. The estimate is least certain for drivers that strongly depend on market conditions at the time of sale, such as valuation multiples in the sector. There the scan gives a direction, not a figure that holds. And a score means nothing useful if the underlying documentation is missing: a high maturity score without supporting evidence is then not an outcome but a guess, and the scan states this explicitly.
The scan shows which work is tied to a person and which work is tied to a process. That is a factual observation about work, not a basis for a decision about who stays and who leaves. If an outcome of the scan touches on a question about dismissal or reorganization, separate legal requirements apply to that, independent of what this scan measures.
The value scan works with what is already established at this moment: contracts, systems, margins, customer spread. Which work in this company can genuinely be taken over by AI is a different question, and that is answered with the work scan from FTE TO AI per task, task by task, rather than as an estimate for the whole company. Anyone who wants to combine this with the question of how you explain this to a buyer will find a starting point for that explanation at what story do you tell a buyer about the work AI does. And because contract form weighs into what is transferable, which contracts increase the value of a business is relevant for anyone who already sees that part of the work runs on verbal agreements.
The free value check consists of eight short questions, one per value driver, and gives a picture of which driver is weighing most heavily on your price today. That is an initial picture, not a final verdict: the full value scan, with a maturity score per driver, owner-dependency index and two-year calendar, is under construction. For owners considering what a buyer proposes in terms of structure after the sale, what is an earn-out and why does a buyer propose one is also a starting point, as is why a due diligence looks at your software licenses for anyone who hasn't yet checked whether the licenses are in the company's name or in a person's name.