How to Choose an AI Consulting Partner: 7 Questions to Ask

The model matters less than the partner. Most AI initiatives stall not because the technology fails, but because the engagement was built to produce a slide deck instead of shipped software. Here's how to tell the difference before you sign.

7 questions to ask any AI partner

• Will you ship to production, or just hand me a roadmap?
• Who owns the IP, code, and data when we're done?
• How do you handle our data readiness, security, and compliance?
• Will my team be more capable after this, or dependent on you?
• How is this priced — and does your model share our risk?
• Can you show real products you've built and run, not just decks?
• What happens in 90 days, and how will we know it worked?

Red flags

• A single fixed price quoted before anyone understands your business.
• Pilots with no clear path to production.
• Black-box tools you can't own or cleanly exit.
• Lots of strategy, no engineers on the floor.

The right partner is measured by what runs in production and by how capable your team is when they leave — not by the thickness of the deck. That's the bar we hold ourselves to. If you're weighing options, start with a free AI assessment and see what a concrete, buildable plan looks like.