Launch, learn,
repeat.
The Indianapolis Business Journal ran a Q&A with Harrison Painter, founder of LaunchReady.ai, in their May 16, 2026 issue. The Last Word feature on page 34A covered the entrepreneurial arc behind LaunchReady and the wisdom-and-AI thesis at the center of the work.
“AI has all the knowledge in the world, but it doesn't have any wisdom. We bring the wisdom to the table. So you have to work on your social awareness, your self-awareness, managing emotions, all these different things to use AI and use it effectively.”Harrison Painter, Indianapolis Business Journal Q&A, May 16, 2026
The Q&A traces the throughline across two decades of building businesses in Indiana: restaurants in college, brand work in Hollywood, a company sold to a public company, and now LaunchReady.ai, the AI Proficiency company building the measurable standard for AI-capable teams.
The wisdom-and-AI line in the pull quote is the spine of the work. The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency framework was built on a simple observation: the constraint between a team having AI tools and a team getting real value out of them is rarely the technology. It is the human capability around the technology. Social awareness. Self-awareness. Managing emotions in the room when the tool surfaces something uncomfortable. The proficiency that turns access into outcomes.
That is why the assessment at assess.launchready.ai measures both the AI skill and the human skill that sit at each level of The 7 Levels of AI Proficiency. The same logic runs through The 7 Levels Engagement, the book, and the AI Law Tracker.
The full Q&A is available at the Indianapolis Business Journal.
The IBJ Q&A is behind a subscriber paywall.
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