For AI, automation and innovation CoE leadsOne pipeline from AI idea to proven return
SilkFlo is AI centre of excellence software: it helps your AI centre of excellence evidence benefits realisation across the whole portfolio. Every idea gets a business case and goes through your stage gates, and its benefits are tracked against the forecast. Your board sees delivery health and return in one live view, not a monthly spreadsheet.
Live in days. No long forms. Everyone else joins free.
Simplified SilkFlo screen with illustrative data.
Why does an AI centre of excellence struggle to evidence benefits realisation?
Most AI centre of excellence teams can show what they built. Few can show what it returned, because the business case lives in a spreadsheet nobody updates after go-live. Leadership wants results, finance wants a forecast it can trust, and the team spends its time compiling reports instead of delivering.
“We’ve got more AI ideas than we can handle. How do we decide which ones get funded?”
“Finance wants a credible ROI forecast, and all I have are rough estimates.”
“Our pipeline is spread across spreadsheets, emails and sticky notes. I can’t see the whole picture.”
“We need to prove the team drives measurable value, not just runs experiments.”
How Aviva found £12M of savings opportunities in 21 days
Aviva’s Claims Innovation team tracked ideas in spreadsheets and a Miro board, with no standard intake and no financial model. With SilkFlo’s AI intake and ready-made business case models, they qualified 102 AI and automation opportunities in 21 days, each with a costed business case. Total cost: £865.
“SilkFlo transformed our process discovery, uncovering £12 million in savings in just three weeks. Its efficiency and ease of use have been a genuine step change for our team.”
How SilkFlo runs your AI centre of excellence pipeline
Four steps take an idea from intake to a tracked return, with the same rules for every initiative in your AI centre of excellence. That is benefits realisation run as one pipeline, not a spreadsheet exercise months after go-live.
Capture every idea
Anyone can submit an idea in plain words. AI-assisted intake asks the right follow-up questions for the goal, whether that’s cost, revenue or risk, so you get complete submissions without long forms.
- No long forms for the people with ideas
- Every idea scored against the same criteria
- Hit pipeline targets without chasing teams
“SilkFlo transformed our messy innovation pipeline into a £12M portfolio of financially-vetted, board-ready business cases. It changed the conversation from ‘what if’ to ‘what’s the ROI’.”
Build the business case in minutes
Ready-made models for Microsoft Copilot, RPA, agentic AI and more forecast cost, savings and payback before anything is committed. Every case uses the same structure, so they compare like for like. Try the method in the free AI ROI calculator.
- Costs and benefits in plain terms
- One structure for every technology
- Give finance a forecast it can check
“SilkFlo simplifies cost/benefit analysis and ROI tracking in one click. Exactly what’s needed to streamline innovation management and communicate value to stakeholders.”
Bianca AgostonAI & Automation LeaderPrioritise and govern
A value-against-effort view shows which initiatives earn their place. Stage gates with approvals and risk checks keep every decision on record. SilkFlo links to Jira, Azure DevOps and Microsoft Planner for delivery.
- One view of every initiative by stage
- A clear record of who approved what
- Fund the work that pays back first
“SilkFlo eliminates the silos when implementing AI and automation. With centralised governance, it’s easier to get stakeholder buy-in and keep everyone aligned on company strategy and goals.”
Georgina OwensCTOTrack the benefits
After go-live, SilkFlo’s API pulls live results from the tools you deploy and compares actual benefits with the original forecast, initiative by initiative and across the portfolio. Reporting that took days becomes a live view.
- Works across any AI or automation vendor
- Forecast against actual, updated as data arrives
- Report delivery health without a monthly scramble
“SilkFlo has become an important part of our benefits realisation approach, providing us with a structured way to capture, assess, prioritise and track opportunities across our digital transformation and automation portfolio.”
Simplified SilkFlo screens with demo workspace data.
What an AI centre of excellence gets back
First-year ROI
5-person CoE team: £85K value on a £12K investment
Months to payback
Same 5-person CoE team
Less admin time
On manual ROI tracking and reporting
Hours a month returned
Per business analyst
Built for the people who run an AI centre of excellence
Evidence benefits realisation
Show the return across the AI portfolio and report delivery health to senior stakeholders.
Run a pipeline everyone can use
Collect ideas from the whole organisation, with clear rules for what gets funded.
Build cases without chasing finance
Produce a full business case and ROI forecast without waiting for a finance template.
Show what the programme was worth
Report what the programme delivered in pounds, not a list of activities completed.
Questions CoE leads ask
We’ve got more AI ideas than we can handle. How do we decide which ones get funded?
Score every idea on the same business case, then compare value against effort. SilkFlo forecasts cost, savings and payback for each idea in the same format, so the shortlist comes from the numbers, not from who argues hardest. Stage gates then make sure each approved idea has an owner and a target. See how the forecast works in the free AI ROI calculator.
We’ve only got two or three AI projects live. Is it too early to start tracking value?
No. Early is the cheapest time to start, because you can still record the baseline before anything changes. Tracking from the first projects also gives you the evidence you need to fund the next wave. Read more about AI value realisation.
How can a business analyst with no access to finance data still produce ROI figures?
The business case models come with standard cost and benefit structures, so an analyst can enter volumes, time and rates and get a forecast. Finance then reviews the assumptions instead of building the model from scratch. Try it in the Business Case Builder.
We haven’t started tracking any metrics. How do we set a baseline?
Record how the process runs today: volumes, time per task, cost and error rates. SilkFlo stores that baseline with the business case, so every later result is measured against it.
We only track adoption. How do we report what AI is actually returning?
Adoption shows people use a tool, not that it saved or earned anything. Link each tool to an initiative with a forecast benefit, then track actuals against it. That gives you a return figure per initiative and for the whole portfolio.
How should an AI Centre of Excellence measure its success?
By what the portfolio returns, not by how many projects it ships. Track benefits realised against the forecast for every live initiative, and the time from idea to funding decision. Report them as one delivery health view: on track, at risk or realising value. SilkFlo builds that view from the records the team already keeps.
Steering committee reporting eats our week. How do we stop rebuilding the report by hand?
Keep every initiative’s business case, stage and benefits in one system, and the steering committee pack becomes a live view you open in the meeting. SilkFlo rolls initiatives up by stage and value and flags anything behind plan, so the weekly rebuild goes away.
See your AI centre of excellence pipeline in SilkFlo
Bring one idea from your AI centre of excellence to a demo and leave with a business case and an ROI forecast.
Free, and built around your own initiatives.