Vendor Due Diligence for AI Implementation Partners
Due diligence should test architecture, security thinking, production experience, and evidence of delivery.
Start with a dependency record for one workflow: the source system, permitted users, required action, failure owner, and acceptance test. A pilot is ready to expand when the team has demonstrated those dependencies with representative users.
Map the Dependencies Behind One User Task
Identify the authoritative source, authenticated user, permitted records, needed action, and owner of each dependency. Choose a narrow task that reaches the actual source system instead of a prepared demo folder.
Example: A staff member asks which expense policy applies. The answer must use the current policy and omit restricted HR files.
Test Changes That a Demo Usually Omits
Remove a user permission, update the source, interrupt the connector, and retry the same request. State the expected behavior for stale or unavailable information before testing.
Assign an Owner to Each Failure
Use a compact record: dependency, failure, consequence, owner, acceptance evidence. Separate a source-quality problem from a retrieval failure and an unsupported model answer.
Price the Remaining Integration Work
Turn unresolved dependencies into scoped deliverables with named acceptance tests. Decide whether the next spend buys discovery, implementation, or ongoing operations; show those costs separately.
A prototype built from a one-time export can answer an important question about usefulness while leaving the cost of operating the service unresolved. In a hypothetical policy assistant, the export may be adequate for an initial user test, but an expanding rollout needs a way to detect changes, respect access decisions, and recover from interrupted updates. Price those capabilities explicitly. This lets the buyer distinguish a useful experiment from a maintainable service and decide whether the expected benefit justifies the additional integration work.
Discuss the implementation scope with Sprinklenet. A useful starting point: a scoped integration review that produces a dependency map and acceptance plan.
References
The recommendations above are Sprinklenet’s practical guidance. Technical context: NIST AI Risk Management Framework, OWASP Prompt Injection.
