Where do the answers come from?
Start here, because everything else follows from it.
- What exactly does it read? Ask for a list: which exports, which documents, which pages. If the answer is “everything”, nobody has scoped it yet.
- Can I see the source behind each answer? A figure with no file and no row is a figure you will end up checking by hand anyway. Ask to see it in a demonstration, not on a slide.
- What does it do when the information is not there? The honest behaviour is to say so and pass the question to a person. Ask to see that happen.
Who checks it, and how?
- How is it tested before we rely on it? Look for acceptance checks written down in advance and run on your own cases, with your own people, such as totals that reconcile to the source report.
- What happens when it gets something wrong? You want a way for your team to correct it once and have that correction apply next time, without raising a ticket.
- Who keeps the decision? For reordering, credit and customer replies, a person should confirm before anything happens. Be wary of anything that acts on its own in your systems.
What happens to our data?
- Does it need a live connection to our ERP? Often it does not. Working from the exports your team already runs is quicker to start and easier to control. A live connection can come later, if it earns its place. See exports or a live ERP connection.
- Where are our files kept, who can open them, and what is deleted at the end? Ask for this in writing before the build, not after.
What will it cost, and what do we own?
- Is the price fixed, and what moves it? Day rates reward a project for growing. A fixed price against a written scope does not. Ask what is included, what is excluded and what ongoing costs there are. See what an AI agent costs.
- What are we left with at handover? A working assistant, the rules written down, and someone on your side who knows how to maintain it. Not a presentation.
How to use this list
Send the questions ahead of a first call and see which ones a supplier answers plainly. Vague answers to questions 2, 4 and 8 are the ones to worry about.
For what it is worth, here is how Socraty answers them: the internal agent page covers sources and acceptance checks, the pricing page gives the numbers, and the guided demo shows a source under every answer and a refusal when it is asked to write to SAP.
