An AI rollout is not buying a box. You are choosing a partner for months, often years of maintenance. These seven questions show whether you face an engineering team or a sales department with a nice deck.
Seven questions worth asking
- —1. Show a live system you maintain today — not a demo, production.
- —2. What happens when the agent does not understand? (good answer: escalation to a human with context)
- —3. Who owns the code and data? Can I take them if we leave?
- —4. How do you quote — fixed after scoping, or "from X" over the phone?
- —5. Who maintains the system after launch, and on what SLAs?
- —6. How do you integrate with our CRM/ERP/telephony?
- —7. Can we start with one process and measure the result before scaling?
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Red flag: no live production to show, a "from X" quote with no scoping, and vagueness about who owns the code. Usually a sign you are paying to be their learning project.Why own products are a good signal
A company with its own products in production faces daily what it sells: maintenance, load, user mistakes. That is a different level of understanding than someone who only deploys at a client and disappears.
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At CyberNinja we start with a free scoping call — no strings, we show what is realistically doable in your case. https://cyberninja.digital/book