How to Choose an AI Engineering Agency (Without Getting Burned)
Questions to ask before hiring an AI engineering agency, and the red flags that separate real engineering from API wrappers.
Ask what "AI" actually means in their proposal
Many agencies advertising "AI solutions" are wrapping a single third-party API call in a chat widget. That's fine for some use cases, but it's not the same as a custom model, a computer vision pipeline, or a system trained on your data ā make sure the proposal specifies which.
Ask who writes the code
If the team proposing your AI system isn't the same team that will build the surrounding application (auth, dashboard, database), you're likely looking at a handoff between two vendors ā which is where scope, timeline, and accountability problems start.
Ask about production experience, not demos
A convincing demo is easy. Ask for a specific example of a system running in production today, with real users, and what broke in the first month after launch.
Ask about data and compliance
Especially for biometric systems (face recognition, RFID), ask directly how data is stored, whether processing happens locally or in the cloud, and what compliance requirements apply in your jurisdiction.
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