Most organisations know AI is changing how decisions get made. Very few have looked closely at whether those decisions are still being made well — or by the right people.
The AI Readiness & Work Design Audit by Chameleon Mettle Group. A structured, evidence-based assessment of where human authority is at risk in your AI-enabled operations. Grounded in HACWD methodology. Relevant to mining, energy, defence, and high-consequence industries
When AI and automation are deployed in high-consequence operations, the focus is almost always on whether the technology works. Throughput. Uptime. Error reduction.
What gets missed is the human side of the system.
Who still owns the decisions the AI influences? Can operators override when they need to? Does anyone in the organisation have a clear picture of where human judgement is strong, where it is degraded, and where it has quietly disappeared?
For most organisations operating at scale in mining, energy, and defence, the honest answer is no. Governance documents say one thing. The reality on the floor says another. And no one has formally measured the gap.
That is what this audit does.
The audit is grounded in HACWD: Human Authority-Centred Work Design, the methodology developed by Dr Peta Chirgwin through her PhD research in mining automation and remote operations. It examines your operation across seven domains:
- whether roles are structured around how AI-enabled work actually functions, or how it used to.
— cognitive load, situational awareness, skill maintenance, and whether operators can exercise effective judgement under pressure.
— what information operators have access to, and whether system outputs support or fragment their decision-making.
— whether your automated systems were designed around human authority, or whether humans were expected to adapt to the system.
— who formally and informally owns decisions, how automated outputs are treated, and whether override pathways exist and are actually used.
— the conditions that determine whether your workforce can raise concerns, intervene when needed, and sustain capability over time.
— whether your AI governance frameworks reflect the actual distribution of authority in your operation, or whether they describe an intent that has not been operationalised.
The audit uses the Human Authority Index (HAI) as one of its core assessment instruments — alongside structured interviews, document review, and operational observation. The HAI produces a scored measure of human decision authority across three dimensions: Decision Clarity, Cognitive Sustainability, and Psychosocial Safety.
The result is not a general impression. It is a scored, evidence-backed assessment that you can take to your board, your regulator, or your insurer.
Includes:
Outcome: A structured, evidence-based view of where AI can be deployed with confidence — and where human authority must be protected, redesigned, or restored.
This audit is designed for senior leaders in mining, energy, defense, aviation, and government -operations where automated systems are running at scale and where the consequences of authority ambiguity are measured in safety incidents, regulatory exposure, and workforce risk.
It is relevant at three points:
Before a major technology deployment to ensure human authority is designed in from the start, not retrofitted later.
During an operational review to identify where degradation has occurred since deployment.
After an incident or near-miss to determine whether authority gaps contributed, and to build the evidence base for governance improvement.
The AI Readiness & Work Design Audit is the first stage of the Chameleon Mettle Group assurance program. The findings it produces become the brief for everything that follows.
Organisations that complete an Audit and want to act on what it finds typically move to the Intelligent Work Blueprint, a structured redesign of work, authority, and governance grounded in HACWD principles.
Executives who want to build their personal governance capability alongside the organisational work can join the Executive AI Assurance Fellowship, which uses the same HACWD framework applied to individual leadership accountability.
A 30-minute briefing is enough to understand whether this engagement is relevant to what you are navigating. No pitch, a direct conversation about what you are seeing and whether the audit addresses it.
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