Key points
- An AI consultant is coming to talk about your business. Will you spot real grasp of your problem, or just polished selling?
- Use the first call to check the consultant sees your real problem and has done comparable work. Hold detailed cost and contract questions until a proposal arrives; raised sooner, they draw only broad replies.
- First, ask what the consultant must learn about your firm before suggesting anything. A strong reply probes which job must get better, and its present cost. A weak reply names a product before your problem is described.
- Ask to phone a former customer with a similar project, and learn whether the gains lasted beyond the trial. Ask to meet the actual builder, since seller and builder are not always one person.
- Ask when the consultant's AI last got something wrong, and how the error was caught. Experienced practitioners have a specific story. Claiming the AI never errs is a weak answer, since no honest provider can promise perfect output.
- Ask where your data will be held, who may view it, and whether you can reclaim and erase it. Clear replies on paper bode well. Legal duties vary with your data and its use, so check the answers with a data protection adviser before sharing customer or staff records.
- Ask which changes your team can make on its own, without the consultant, after handover. A strong answer lists them; a weak one just says to ring the consultant. Ask about training too, because a tool nobody uses achieves nothing.
- One hazy reply is no reason to drop a consultant, since anyone has off moments; a run of them is. Find the full first-call checklist in the questions guide on AI Consultancy Finder.
Transcript
An AI consultant is coming to talk about your business. Will you spot real grasp of your problem, or just polished selling? Use the first call to check the consultant sees your real problem and has done comparable work. Hold detailed cost and contract questions until a proposal arrives; raised sooner, they draw only broad replies.
First, ask what the consultant must learn about your firm before suggesting anything. A strong reply probes which job must get better, and its present cost. A weak reply names a product before your problem is described. Ask to phone a former customer with a similar project, and learn whether the gains lasted beyond the trial.
Ask to meet the actual builder, since seller and builder are not always one person. Ask when the consultant's AI last got something wrong, and how the error was caught. Experienced practitioners have a specific story. Claiming the AI never errs is a weak answer, since no honest provider can promise perfect output.
Ask where your data will be held, who may view it, and whether you can reclaim and erase it. Clear replies on paper bode well. Legal duties vary with your data and its use, so check the answers with a data protection adviser before sharing customer or staff records.
Ask which changes your team can make on its own, without the consultant, after handover. A strong answer lists them; a weak one just says to ring the consultant. Ask about training too, because a tool nobody uses achieves nothing. One hazy reply is no reason to drop a consultant, since anyone has off moments; a run of them is.
Find the full first-call checklist in the questions guide on AI Consultancy Finder.