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The 15 Questions To AskAny AI Vendor Before You Sign.

73% of custom AI projects stall in 90 days. Most fail because the buyer didn't ask the right questions during the sales cycle. This is the short-list a serious operator should walk into every AI vendor conversation with — vendor-neutral, battle-tested across hundreds of audits.

Vendor-neutral15 questions5-minute read
01

Will I own the code, agents, and integrations when you deliver, or am I renting?

WhySaaS AI tools are licensed. The moment you stop paying — or they sunset the product — your operations stop. Custom infrastructure should be yours forever.

Green flag“You own everything on delivery. The repo is transferred to your GitHub org. The agents run in your cloud. There’s no rent-seeking license.”

02

What happens if your company pivots, raises prices, or shuts down?

WhyIf the engine is hosted on the vendor's infrastructure or depends on their proprietary runtime, their business risk becomes your business risk. Ask explicitly.

Green flag“If we vanished tomorrow, your engine would keep running. Your team has the documentation and the access to maintain or extend it without us.”

03

Can the system run on MY infrastructure (AWS / GCP / Azure account), or am I locked to your cloud?

WhyHosting lock-in is the most common silent vendor trap. If the engine only runs on their cloud, you can't move it, audit it, or scale it on your terms.

Green flag“It deploys into your AWS / GCP / Azure account on day one. You hold the keys. We have read-only access during build only.”

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