Methodology

A Practical Framework for Attrition Value Modeling

Eric Avery·Founder & CEOMay 5, 20261 min read

Attrition value is the third rail of AI measurement. Understate it and you're accused of missing the point. Overstate it and you're accused of recklessness. Doing it responsibly requires a framework most organizations don't have.

The Umbral Intelligence approach treats attrition value as a distribution, not a number. For a given role and a given level of AI integration, we produce a range — a conservative estimate, a central estimate, and an optimistic ceiling — anchored to published automation baselines and discounted for organizational friction.

What we never do is publish the optimistic ceiling as the number. That's the difference between a research product and a marketing one. The range exists so leaders can make decisions with appropriate uncertainty — not so vendors can cite the top of it.