The 15-question AI audit every SMB should run before hiring a vendor.
Most SMBs come back from their first AI consultancy with a deck, a Slack channel, and an invoice — but no system running. These are the fifteen questions we'd ask on your behalf before you sign. If a vendor can't answer them confidently, they haven't shipped.
What's inside
- Exact, repeatable task the AI owns
- Today's cost (hours, dollars, errors)
- Who the AI replaces or augments
- Where the data lives
- Write-path back to core system
- Ambiguous-record behavior
- Production URL we built end-to-end
- IP, code, and prompt ownership
- Day 61 handoff plan
- Fixed-fee v1 + out-of-scope list
- Failure modes + fallbacks
- Liability when AI is wrong
- 30-day success metric
- 10× scale cost behavior
- What's next on top of it
Questions about the checklist
Who is this for?
SMB operators and founders who are AI-curious but tired of decks and demos. If you're about to sign an AI vendor SOW, run this first.
Is this a sales funnel?
Yes — kind of. You'll get the PDF immediately, and we'll add you to our monthly SMB-AI newsletter. Unsubscribe in one click. We only pitch ourselves if your audit flags something we actually ship.
Where do these 15 questions come from?
From shipping three live AI-first systems — RetailOS (retail), MedPrüf (medical exam prep), Bridge Sourcing (B2B). Each question is tied to a real failure mode we've seen or avoided.
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