The AI buyer’s guide, written for the person signing it.

Part one: scoping the right workflow

Start with the four tests: does the workflow happen often enough, can the rules be written down, is there a number that will move, and what does a wrong instance cost? Score your candidates and take the ranked list into the first meeting.

A supplier who accepts your first suggestion without argument has skipped the most valuable half hour of the project.

The most useful thing a supplier does early is disagree with your candidate workflow.

Part two: what a real quote contains

Five build lines (scoping and design, integration, operator interface, the automation, verification) plus running cost per unit of work, your own review hours, a change budget for the first eight weeks, and documentation and handover.

Integration is usually the largest line. If a quote makes the model the expensive part, the supplier has either not looked at your systems or is selling you a demo.

Part three: a believable timeline

A single-workflow system reaches production in roughly six weeks: one week audit, one week scope and design, three weeks build and integration, one week verification and handover. Anything much faster has skipped scoping; anything much slower is either bigger than one workflow or not scoped at all.

Ask what happens in each week and who from your side is needed. A timeline with no client time in it is fiction.

Part four: the clauses that decide ownership

• Code in your repository, from the first week
• Cloud and model accounts billed to you
• Data, evaluation set and derived artefacts yours
• Rules and prompts editable and version-controlled
• Support optional, system runs without it
• Providers, regions and retention named in writing

The account clause is the one suppliers resist. It is also the one that decides whether leaving is possible.

Part five: the approval points to insist on

Customer-facing output held for review by default, low-confidence work escalated to a named person, and destructive or financial actions always behind a human step. Get them in the design, not added later.

And ask what the audit record contains. If nobody can answer, there is not one.

Part six: eleven questions for any supplier

• Which workflow would you start with, and why not the one I suggested?
• What is the one number this will move, and what is it today?
• Which of my systems does this integrate with, and do they all have APIs?
• What does it cost per enquiry, call or document at my volume?
• Where does my data go, to which providers, in which region?
• Is my data used to train anyone’s model?
• Where does a person approve, and who by name?
• What happens when the system is unsure?
• What is in the handover pack?
• Whose accounts does it run in?
• What happens if I stop paying for support?

Any supplier should answer all eleven without preparation. Nexvix answers them on the first call, which is what the call is for.

Part seven: when to walk away

No named workflow. No number. No named integrations. Deployment in the supplier’s account. A retainer required for the system to keep running. Any of those, on their own, is enough.