What Questions Should I Ask an AI Vendor Before Signing?

The AI vendor market is noisy. Every provider claims their product is easy to deploying an AI employee, fully integrated, and GDPR compliant. Most of these claims are technically true but practically incomplete. Here are the questions that actually matter before you sign anything. **1. Who owns my data?** This is non-negotiable. Your customer data, your business data, and any data your AI processes must remain yours. Some AI vendors use customer data to train their models. That is a GDPR issue, a competitive risk, and a data ownership problem. Get the answer in writing. **2. Where is my data stored?** For Cyprus businesses operating under GDPR, data must be stored in the EU or in a country with an adequacy decision. Verify this. Do not assume. **3. What does the integration actually cover?** Vendors say they integrate with existing software everything. Ask specifically: which version of your CRM? Which data fields sync? What happens when the integration breaks? Who fixes it and how fast? **4. What is the total cost of ownership?** The monthly fee is rarely the full cost. Ask about: setup fees, integration costs, support tiers, customisation costs, and what happens to pricing as your usage scales. **5. What is the exit process?** If you want to leave, how do you extract your data? What format does it come in? Is there a lock-in period? Vendors who make exiting difficult are betting on your inertia. **6. What does support actually look like?** Email-only support with 48-hour SLAs is not acceptable for business-critical AI. Ask for the specific support hours, response time commitments, and who your point of contact is. **7. Can you show me a deployment like mine?** Ask for a case study from a business of similar size and sector. If the vendor cannot provide one, they are proposing to learn on your time and budget. **8. What happens when it fails?** AI systems can fail. Understand the failure modes specific to what you are buying. What does a failure look like for your customers? What is the escalation process? ZingZee answers all of these before you sign anything. Talk to us.