Vendor diligence

Evaluating vendor "agent washing" before contract

Demo scripts, reference calls, and security reviews that separate orchestration from slideware.

By Emily Shah

3D icons representing analytics, automation, and commerce

Every vendor briefing now includes the word agent. Some products orchestrate workflows with clear boundaries. Others wrap a thin UI around a model call. Buyers need diligence playbooks that cut through language inflation without becoming cynics who miss real progress.

Demo scripts that reveal depth

Ask vendors to show failure handling, approvals, rollback, and logging. Ask how configuration is stored and audited. Ask how customer data is isolated between tenants. If a demo only shows happy paths, schedule a second session focused on edge cases.

Reference calls that ask the right questions

Speak to customers with similar compliance constraints and similar channel complexity. Ask about implementation time, who maintains prompts, and what broke in the first ninety days.

Security reviews should map to your actual risk model. A lightweight vendor may still be appropriate for internal drafting, while customer facing automation requires stricter controls.

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