Why EAIC
Most regulated organisations cannot afford Big 4 AI governance and cannot get meaningful risk quantification from a SaaS tool alone. EAIC was built for exactly this gap.
The problem
Built for enterprises with compliance teams, six-month timelines, and budgets of £250k–£800k. They leave you with a PowerPoint and a framework to implement yourself. Junior team delivery. No continuous monitoring. No platform.
Built for teams that already know what AI they have. They provide dashboards and compliance trackers — useful once you have an inventory, useless if you don't know what's running. No consulting delivery. No ROI quantification.
12–18 months to reach the same standard. No independent validation. Boards and regulators do not accept self-assessments. The internal team has a conflict of interest in assessing its own AI deployments.
Regulated organisations with real AI exposure and limited internal governance resource fall between all three options. They need the outcome of a Big 4 engagement at a price and timescale that makes commercial sense.
The difference
AutoDiscover scans your cloud estate, SSO directory, and SaaS footprint before we ask a single question. Shadow AI — the tools teams are using without IT approval — is surfaced automatically. Stakeholder interviews validate and extend the inventory. The result is complete, not curated.
The average client expects 8 systems. We find 34. The gap between those two numbers is your governance exposure.
Every risk score is translated into a monetary exposure. Every automation opportunity is modelled with NPV, IRR, and risk-adjusted return. The output is a capital allocation recommendation — not a compliance checklist. Your CFO can take it to an investment committee.
Most AI governance engagements tell you where you're non-compliant. Sentinel tells you what non-compliance costs — and what good governance is worth.
The Sentinel Framework was built to produce board-ready output in exactly 12 days. Not approximately 12 days. Exactly. Fixed fee, fixed timescale — no day-rate creep, no scope expansion, no "we'll need another phase."
Governance that takes six months to deliver is governance that arrives after the regulator does.
How we compare
Across every dimension that matters to a regulated UK organisation.
| EAIC | Big 4 | SaaS-only | DIY / internal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | From £3,500 | £50k–£100k+ | £15k–£60k/year | Headcount cost |
| Time to first output | Same day | 6–12 months | Self-implementation | 12–18 months |
| Finds shadow AI | ✓ AutoDiscover | ✗ Rarely | ✗ Known systems only | ✗ |
| Financial ROI model | ✓ Included | ✓ Sometimes | ✗ Not included | ✗ |
| Board-ready output | ✓ Day 12 | ✓ Expensive extra | ✗ | ✗ Not independent |
| Continuous monitoring | ✓ Citadel | ✗ Not standard | ✓ Core product | ✗ |
| Fixed fee | ✓ | ✗ Day rates | ✓ | ✗ |
| Independent validation | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ Conflict of interest |
| Year 1 total cost | £18k–£60k | £150k–£500k+ | £15k–£60k | £80k–£150k est. |
A Sentinel Diagnostic takes one day and starts at £3,500. The fee is credited in full if you proceed to a full engagement.
Fixed fee · No day-rate surprises · No commitment beyond the Diagnostic
