Strategy question
You have three possible AI opportunities from different government agencies, each with different revenue potential, data readiness, deployment complexity, and strategic value in the region. How would you prioritize which one to pursue first, and what criteria would drive your decision?
- Scale AI
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Portfolio prioritization under multiple, hard-to-compare criteria: can you weigh revenue, data readiness, deployment complexity, and strategic value into a defensible first pick.
How to approach it
- List the three opportunities with their concrete values on each dimension: revenue potential, how ready the underlying data is, how complex deployment will be, and strategic value like a reference customer for the region.
- Weight data readiness heavily early, since a technically appealing but data-poor opportunity will stall regardless of revenue potential or strategic value.
- Weight deployment complexity against team capacity, since taking on the most complex opportunity first risks delivering none of them well.
- Combine into a simple weighted score, but sanity-check it against a qualitative question: which one, if it succeeds, most opens the door to the other two later.
- Pick the opportunity that scores well on data readiness and complexity even if it is not the single highest revenue option, since a fast, credible win builds momentum for the region.
What a strong answer includes
- Weighs data readiness and deployment complexity as gating factors, not just inputs averaged with revenue, since those two often determine whether the project ships at all.
- Adds the qualitative door-opener question, which reflects real strategic thinking about sequencing multiple government opportunities, not just picking the biggest one.
- Chooses a specific, defensible answer instead of saying it depends without committing to logic.
Common mistakes
- Picks purely by revenue potential without weighing deployment risk.
- Gives criteria but never actually commits to a recommendation.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you re-evaluate if the top pick stalls halfway through deployment.
- What would make you deprioritize the highest-revenue option entirely.
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More questions from Scale AI
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop