The artifact system

Purpose

AI Conveyor artifacts are structured records, documents, and reviews that help make a decision about an initiative: advance it, refine it, reject it, support it, or scale it.

An artifact is not needed for the sake of reporting. It should answer a specific stage gate question: is the problem clear enough, has a product been chosen, can the data be used, is the solution ready for deployment, is the impact confirmed.

Why artifacts are needed

• They enable stage gates. A decision should rely on the card, a check for similar initiatives, data, risks, architecture, and impact.
• They accumulate knowledge. The team does not lose context when the owner, product, or contributor changes.
• They reduce duplicate work. Similar initiatives, decisions, and mistakes become visible.
• They standardize communication. Business, the AI office, security, architecture, and finance speak the same language.
• They support audit. For a bank and a large company it is important to show who made a decision and why.

Key artifacts

Artifact	When needed	Which question it answers
Initiative card	At all stages	What this initiative is, who the owner is, where it is in the funnel, and what impact is expected
Use case document	New / assessment	Which process is changing, which problem is being solved, and which product fits
Experiment report	Assessment / delivery	Whether feasibility, value, data quality, and the approach are confirmed
Architecture review	Delivery	Whether the solution can be safely embedded into the workflow
Value report	Awaiting impact	What actual result was achieved and what to do next

Principles of working with artifacts

• An artifact should support a decision. If a document does not affect a transition, priority, risk, or impact, it should be simplified or removed.
• An artifact is linked to an initiative. It should be accessible from the card, the tasks, or the decision history.
• The responsible party is known. Every artifact has an owner role: business owner, AI office, project manager, architect, security, finance.
• The required minimum depends on risk. A low-risk initiative should not go through the same documentation flow as a solution affecting customers, money, or regulatory obligations.
• The AI assistant can prepare a draft. But the final content is confirmed by the responsible role.

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Artifacts by stage

Stage	Minimum artifacts
New	initiative card, initial brief, initiator, expected type of impact
Assessment	use case document, check for similar initiatives, preliminary impact hypothesis, chosen product or selection task
Delivery	task plan, data check, security review if needed, architecture review, experiment results
Awaiting impact	check date, baseline and actual indicators, calculation methodology, impact owner
Support / closure	value report, decision on support, scaling, rework, or closure

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What can be automated

The platform and the AI assistant can speed up work with artifacts:

• create an initiative card from a free-form description;
• extract fields from an uploaded document;
• check for similar initiatives;
• suggest missing fields before a transition;
• prepare a draft use case document;
• formulate questions for security, data, and architecture;
• assemble a draft value report.

Automation does not remove responsibility. An artifact is considered ready only after confirmation by the owner.

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Adapting to maturity

At an early maturity level it is enough to maintain the initiative card, the use case document, and the value report.

At the intermediate level the following are added:

• data check;
• security review;
• architecture review;
• delivery plan;
• tasks and decision history.

At the mature level the following are added:

• independent review of risky solutions;
• exceptions log;
• templates by AI product;
• financial validation of impact;
• regular review of solutions on support.

The framework sets the minimum standard. The organization extends it while keeping the link between artifacts and stage gates.