EEmployee
“Does the employee understand it?”
Knowledge lives in a person's head.
L1 → L5 ON THIS FACE
luck · personal recipe · transferable method · calibrated control · self-renewal
THE ENTERPRISE FRAME · POWERED BY COAGNES
The Algorithmic
Company
People, processes, and the organisation learn to move with the machine — one algorithm, three carriers of practice, and a shared alphabet for saying where you stand.
- FIG. 01
- The AI Maturity Cube.
- SHOWS
- It shows where a practice lives — with a person, in a process, or in an organisation — across seven dimensions of working with AI, at five levels. The terracotta line marks the articulation threshold: the point where a habit becomes a method that can be explained.
- SCALE
- 7 × 5 × 3 — 105 states in all.
- DRAWN ON
- NestVM, assembled by CoAgnes.
- ISSUED BY
- CoAgnes, 2026.
Drawn for research with AI as a partner
IN THIS SECTION
READThe AI Maturity CubeSeven dimensions, five levels and three carriers of practice: the complete matrices, the alphabet, the articulation threshold and the three connectivity laws.TRYAssess your cubeAn adaptive walk through the faces you choose. Every answer is evidence and tints the cube as you go. Nothing you answer leaves your browser.AUDITWhere the cube comes fromThe provenance of the framework: from the capability maturity model to one person's working day, in four folds.
§ 1 · THREE CARRIERS
The same seven questions, asked of three carriers of practice
Knowledge about working with AI lives somewhere: in a person's head, in the artefacts of a process, or in an organisation's institutions. The cube asks the same seven dimensions of each carrier — only the subject of the question changes.
PProcess
“Does the process define it, regardless of who performs it?”
Knowledge lives in process artefacts — steps, templates, checkpoints.
L1 → L5 ON THIS FACE
unmanaged · pockets of practice · built into the process · process is measured · self-optimising
OOrganisation
“Does the organisation provide and govern it, regardless of the process?”
Knowledge lives in institutions — norms, resources, metrics, training.
L1 → L5 ON THIS FACE
shadow · local initiatives · norm + enablement · managed portfolio · learning organisation
THE VERTICAL IS A LIFECYCLE
Before the request
Truth · Deep — what can be asked, and how to frame it
The request
Connect · Service — context, phrasing, system choice
After the response
Knowledge · Evolution — working the answer, iterating
Cross-cutting
Responsibility — validation spans the whole loop
§ 2 · THE ALPHABET
Any of the 105 states is a three-symbol word
word = carrier · dimension · level. Position resolves letter collisions: the first letter is always the carrier, the second the dimension, the digit the level. A profile is a vector of 21 words — and levels are never averaged: folding them into one number destroys exactly the diagnostic value the cube exists for.
L1 Ad hocL2 RepeatableL3 ArticulatedL4 ManagedL5 Evolving
The rule between L2 and L3 is the model's central line — the articulation threshold: below it a practice dies with its carrier; above it, it can be handed over.
E-C3an employee deliberately prepares context
P-R4a managed validation protocol inside a process
O-T2the organisation knows AI's place only in pockets
FIG. 02 — READING S·D·L WORDS
§ 3 · CONNECTIVITY LAWS
The faces project as independent — the links survive as laws
Projecting the cube onto faces is a deliberate claim of partial independence. The real couplings between carriers are not lost — they are lifted out of the geometry into three explicit laws.
LAW 1E3 → P3 → O3
The institutionalisation ladder
The articulation threshold is the same threshold on every carrier — in a different aggregate state: “I can explain it” (E3) → “it is written into the process” (P3) → “it is anchored as a norm” (O3). Institutionalisation is knowledge moving across carriers, and the L3 column is its ladder.
LAW 2|ΔL| ≤ 1
The gap law
Configurations with a gap of two or more levels between adjacent carriers of one dimension are unstable and produce predictable pathologies: employees far ahead (E ≫ P, O) breeds shadow practice that leaves with the people; the organisation far ahead (O ≫ P, E) breeds paper maturity — dead regulations. The stable band is a gap of at most one level.
LAW 3E→P→O · O→P→E
Two counter-flows of growth
Growth runs as two counter-flows: institutionalisation from below (a personal method becomes a process step becomes a norm) and enablement from above (a policy becomes a regulation becomes a trained employee). A rollout programme manages both flows, not one.
§ 4 · PROVENANCE
Where the cube comes from
The skeleton is borrowed from CMM — the maturity model built at the Software Engineering Institute to judge whether contractors could be trusted with critical work. Its central construction survives the transfer intact: a level is not a score but a mode of existence of a practice. The cube carries that construction from the organisation down to one employee and one working day — then back up, through processes, to the organisation again. The circle closing is the consistency check.
DERIVATION IN FOUR FOLDS
- 01CMM transfers to one person: level = mode of existence
- 0235 cells fill; the vertical turns out to be a lifecycle
- 03The carrier axis appears: head → process → institution
- 04The cube gets its alphabet and its three laws
Where does your cube stand?
A threshold-first walk through the faces you choose. Each answer scores +1 / −1 evidence and colours the cube as you go. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere.