The 10 questions
The 10 questions you should ask any agentic AI vendor.
Including us. They work with any proposal that reaches your desk — and they separate, in a single meeting, who will generate value from who will generate a rollback nine months from now.
Open each question, note the vendor's answer, and take the sheet to your steering committee. Notes stay in this browser only and disappear when you close the tab — nothing you write leaves this page.
01On responsibility3 questions
- Where does my responsibility end and yours begin? Is it written down?
- What is the cap? What is the remedy when the agent gets it wrong?
- Which events suspend your obligation?
Why ask
If the answer is “we're partners and we'll sort it out together,” you carry all of the risk. The absence of a written boundary does not split responsibility: it concentrates it on whoever signed the contract.
02On authority3 questions
- What exactly is this agent authorized to do?
- Is the list positive, with value and volume limits, or a generic description of scope?
- What happens when it meets a case outside the list? Who is the person, by name, who receives the escalation?
Why ask
A minority of organizations automatically block actions outside the authorized scope. Without positive enumeration, “out of scope” is an opinion formed after the fact.
Only 11%automatically block agent actions that fall outside the authorized scopeCloud Security Alliance03On autonomy3 questions
- How do you handle reliability before autonomy? Does an agent move up an autonomy level based on time in operation or on measured reliability?
- Which numbers justify each step up, and where are they recorded?
- What makes an agent move back down a level?
Why ask
Autonomy granted by the calendar is a bet. An agent should earn broader authority only once its success rate, human intervention rate, and rollback rate are measured and proven — and each step up leaves the number in the evidence.
04On measurement2 questions
- What is my baseline today, measured by whom and accepted in writing?
- If the baseline does not exist, what exactly are you promising to improve?
Why ask
Fewer than 10% of use cases move beyond the pilot stage — and a pilot with no baseline accepted in writing has no way to prove it should.
Less than 10%of AI-deployed use cases move beyond the pilot stageMcKinsey05On the technique3 questions
- Do you always recommend a generative AI agent?
- In which cases is the answer traditional machine learning, rules, or optimization — or not automating at all?
- What is your list of what you would not automate here?
Why ask
Not every problem calls for generative AI. A vendor who proposes an agent for everything is selling a technique, not solving the process: sometimes the right answer is a machine learning model, a rule, or an optimizer, and sometimes it is not automating at all.
06On cost2 questions
- What does one task cost? Not the contract, not the month: the task.
- Token cost, infrastructure cost, human intervention rate, and success rate — separately.
Why ask
If the vendor does not know, you will find out on the invoice. Cost uncertainty is the single biggest internal concern CFOs name about AI.
46%of CFOs name cost uncertainty as their single biggest internal concern with AI useDeloitte CFO Signals Q2 202607On evidence3 questions
- Show me the evidence pack from a real client, anonymized.
- Does it link the decision to the data source? Does it record the authority invoked and the human intervention?
- Is it produced by the operation or assembled afterwards? Would your internal audit accept it as is?
Why ask
A small fraction of organizations maintain both an audit trail and a link from the decision back to the data source. Evidence assembled after the fact is justification, not control.
Only 10%maintain both audit trails for AI agents and links from the decisions back to the data sourcesModern Data Survey 202608On the lifecycle2 questions
- How is an agent decommissioned? Who authorizes it?
- Are credentials revoked by process or by someone remembering?
Why ask
Ask before growing the agent team: most organizations have no formal decommissioning process, and a forgotten agent keeps its access.
Only 21%have a formal process for decommissioning agentsCloud Security Alliance09On the exit2 questions
- If I want to leave in eighteen months, what do I take? In what format?
- How long does it take and what does it cost? Is it in the contract?
Why ask
Negotiate the exit up front, while it is cheap: 71% say switching their main AI vendor or model would be difficult, and having the clause up front costs less than negotiating it later.
71%say switching their main AI vendor or model would be difficult; 91% do not fully understand their dependenciesIBM Institute for Business Value010On the vendor itself2 questions
- How many agents do you operate in production today, at clients, under a behavior SLA?
- What is your decommissioning rate?
Why ask
If the answer is zero decommissionings, either the operation is small or it is not being measured — because most of the market has already rolled back at least one agent from production.
74%of companies have already rolled back at least one agent from productionSinch, AI Production Paradox
And the five questions the regulator will ask
Once the work is contracted, every agent will have to answer them. It is worth asking the vendor, right now, how they will.
01Who decided?
The agent's identity, its named owner, and the person on whose behalf it acted
02Was it allowed to decide?
An approved authority matrix, in the version in force at the time of the action
03Based on what?
Each decision tied to the data sources that supported it
04Did anyone review it?
Human approvals and refusals recorded, with a deadline and an owner
05Can it be proven?
Tamper-evident evidence, exportable in an open format
Audit, regulator, legal, or end customer: the question changes shape, but it is always one of these five.
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