Which TIC AI skills can you buy one at a time?

What we tested, and what happened

Uploaded as a skill file and run in Claude on 18 September 2026. Pasted as text and run on 20 September 2026 in ChatGPT and Gemini, each on a free account, and in Microsoft Copilot Chat (Basic) in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, signed in with a work or school account. We have not tested uploading a skill file to Microsoft 365 Copilot. We do not claim what we have not tested.

The 14 skills in our two M&A reports, Buying a TIC business and Selling a TIC business, were uploaded as skill files and run in Claude on 19 October 2026 (Claude Pro, Opus 5.5, medium effort). Each ran on the reports' invented example, and all 14 gave the answers the example expects. We test them again with each new version of the reports.

Assistants differ, and we saw it. Asked for a detail we had not given, ChatGPT and Gemini stopped and asked for it; Microsoft Copilot drafted the email and left the missing details in brackets, marked "Draft for review only". Neither invented one. Wording varies between assistants, and between one run and the next.

Volume 1 · The AI-Augmented TIC Sales Machine

• W1 Account intelligence – An eight-section account briefing, and a flash brief before a meeting.
• W3 Enquiry qualification – An enquiry in a fixed format with a fit score, and an acknowledgement reply.
• W4 Rapid quotation – A proposed programme for engineer review, with no prices, and a quote cover note.
• W5 Tender response – A bid or no-bid recommendation, answers from your own library with gaps marked, and a review of the assembled bid.
• W6 Proposal drafting – A tailored proposal draft that uses the confirmed quote figures exactly as given.
• W7 Battlecards – A battlecard built from your evidence, and objection practice with a score.
• W8 Renewal guardian – A renewal risk level with the three signals behind it, and a renewal-opening email.
• W9 White space – A matrix of your service lines against the account's sites, products and markets, showing where you do not sell yet.
• W10 Win/loss – A structured debrief record, and a quarterly pattern report.
• W11 CRM hygiene – CRM fields filled from an email or transcript, left blank where it says nothing.
• W12 Pipeline cockpit – A one-page weekly pipeline brief, with every number taken from the CRM extract.

Volume 2 · AI for Key Account Management

• K1 Fit and permission – Two verdicts for each customer need: can we do it, and may we under our accreditation scope.
• K2 Buying group – The customer's roles, and which of your people reaches each one.
• K3 Gap register – A draft gap register from the K1 verdicts and the K2 coverage map, with the decision left blank.
• K5 Revenue base – A banded revenue forecast for the next twelve months, showing what each band rests on.
• K6 Decline-risk scanner – Each recurring revenue line checked against seven ways TIC revenue leaves, with the cause and the signal named, never a score.
• K7 Credit and exposure – Days beyond terms month by month, and the exposure carried for the account and each related entity.
• K8 Competitive brief – What changed in competitors' published scope and in the account's certificates, from fixed sources only.
• K9 Account calendar – One calendar of every commitment, certificate date and portal document date, with the next 180 days listed.
• K10 Value case – Questions for the customer's own numbers, and the one figure your firm can evidence.
• K11 Plan refresher – The contradictions, undated entries and overdue sections in an account plan, found against the latest workflow outputs.
• K12 Knowledge capture – Candidate entries for the account record, each sourced, dated and marked observed or inferred.

M&A report · Buying a TIC business

• B1 Deal thesis – The route test for each service you want to grow (buy, partner or build), and a deal thesis with walk-away conditions.
• B2 Target pipeline and fit – A target list from public records, each candidate scored 0 to 3 on your own weighted criteria, with dated sources.
• M1 Valuation self-check – A valuation range from your own figures: discounted cash flow and multiples, with net assets for comparison only. No verdict and no price.
• M2 Approvals map – Every body or party that must be told or must agree when the business changes owner, with who asks and when.
• B3 Due-diligence red flags – Each red flag in the data room, across eight areas, with its document, page and a question for the seller.
• B4 Customer overlap – Shared customers, concentration and revenue at risk, worked out inside a clean team.
• B5 People and culture fit – The signatories and key people the accreditation depends on, with the risk of losing each one.
• B6 First 100 days – Day 1 and first-100-days plans and a 12-month review, protecting accreditation, people and customers first.

M&A report · Selling a TIC business

• S1 Exit options – The ways out of the business, weighed against your written goals, with what each route needs and what is still unknown.
• S2 Sale readiness – Your own files reviewed as a buyer would, across eight areas, with what to put right or disclose, owners and dates.
• M1 Valuation self-check – A valuation range from your own figures: discounted cash flow and multiples, with net assets for comparison only. No verdict and no price.
• M2 Approvals map – Every body or party that must be told or must agree when the business changes owner, with who asks and when.
• S3 Likely-buyer map – Possible buyers from their own published words: what each wants, sources and dates, and similar deals. No ranking.
• S4 Customer concentration and contracts – Concentration, contract terms and change-of-control clauses, with a prepared answer for each risk.
• S5 Sale story and data room – A teaser, an information memorandum outline, a data-room index and a question log, with every claim tied to a document.
• S6 Offer comparison – Offers compared on cash at closing, money at risk and certainty, against your goals and lowest terms. No recommendation.