5 Questions to Ask Any AI Vendor Before You Sign

A good AI demo is designed to impress, not to inform. These five questions move the conversation from the highlight reel to the substance, and they tell you fast whether a vendor is worth your time.

1. Where does our data go, and who can access it?

   You want specifics: where it's stored, whether it's encrypted, whether it trains their models, and whether they'll sign the agreements your industry requires. Vagueness here is disqualifying.

2. Show me where it fails.

   Any honest vendor can describe the cases their system handles badly and what happens then. If everything “just works,” you're watching a sales pitch, not a product.

3. What do we actually own?

   Clarify who owns the data, the models trained on it, and the outputs, and what you can take with you if you leave.

4. What does this look like in month six?

   Great demos hide ongoing cost and maintenance. Ask what upkeep, tuning, and support the real relationship requires once the novelty wears off.

5. Who else like us uses this, and can we talk to them?

   A reference in your industry, at your size, is worth more than any slide. Reluctance to provide one tells you something.

“If everything in the demo just works, you're not looking at a product. You're looking at a sales pitch.”

The meta-point

The best vendors welcome these questions because good answers are their advantage. The ones who get defensive are answering for you. Either way, five questions save you from a decision you'd spend the next year regretting.