How to Evaluate an AI Engineering Partner

Reading

Guides in this collection.

Comparing the approachesShould you build, buy, or partner for enterprise AI?Source model, data, workflow, integration, evaluation, experience, and operations independently, with explicit ownership and exit cost.6 min readRead
Comparing the approachesWhat is forward-deployed engineering?Forward-deployed engineering shortens the path from observing a wrong assumption to changing the system. Direct access to the work and authority to make bounded changes are essential.7 min readRead
Judging the evidenceCan another team operate what your AI vendor built?Handover passes only when a new team can rebuild, evaluate, deploy, observe, roll back, and operate the system.7 min readRead
Judging the evidenceWhat proof should an AI engineering partner provide?The proof worth asking for is evidence the partner produced as a by-product of doing the work, not documents assembled for the sale: run records, the evaluation set and its failures, the decisions that were reversed, and a handover another team has actually used. Anything authored for the pitch tests writing, not work.8 min readRead
Judging the evidenceMake AI vendors prove they can run production systemsScore representative evaluation, failure handling, deployment evidence, operating ownership, and exit instead of demos, logos, or generic team claims.7 min readRead
Judging the evidenceAn AI pilot must be allowed to failA pilot needs a frozen decision, baseline, representative hard cases, operating exposure, cost boundary, and precommitted no-go criteria.8 min readRead
Judging the evidenceHow should you test an AI vendor before hiring?Match a paid selection exercise to the delivery model. Test fixed-brief delivery through its returned artifacts, and embedded delivery through the actual workflow, access and approval constraints.8 min readRead
Judging the evidenceWhat should I ask an AI vendor in the first meeting?Seven questions, each with what a good answer sounds like and what a bad one hides.5 min readRead

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