How to choose a partner to implement AI in your company

To choose a partner to implement AI, check whether they start with your process and not the tool, whether they integrate the AI with your CRM, whether they write down limits and rules for handing off to people, whether they train your team and whether they measure results in sales. The slickest demo tells you nothing about any of that. The right questions do.

This article covers the types of partners out there, the criteria to compare them, the questions to ask in the first meeting and the red flags. It applies to projects in the three areas where AI moves revenue fastest: sales, customer service and marketing. For the full context, see the guide on how to implement AI in your company.

Before you start looking: what do you need?

Not every AI project needs a partner. If the goal is for the team to write better or summarize documents, an off-the-shelf tool and a usage policy will do. A partner makes a difference when the AI is going to:

• talk to customers on behalf of the company;
• read and write information in the CRM;
• follow business rules, such as price, delivery time and qualification criteria;
• hand conversations off to sales reps and support agents;
• be measured in sales.

Before the first meeting, be clear about the process you want to improve and today's number. The AI maturity assessment helps you show up with that answer. Those who show up without it tend to buy whatever solution the vendor already had ready.

What kind of partner do you need?

Vendors fall into a few profiles. None is best at everything. What matters is the fit with your problem:

When in doubt, be wary of anyone who claims to be good for everything. Ask what case the vendor implements most often and see whether it looks like yours.

Criteria for evaluating a partner

1. Starts with the process

A good partner asks about your funnel before talking about the tool: how leads come in, who responds, what a qualified lead is, where the sale stalls. If the first meeting is a generic demo, the project will adapt your process to the tool, not the other way around.

2. Understands sales and customer service

AI in sales is a sales project. The partner needs to understand qualification, follow-up, objections and support queues. Without that, the AI answers correctly but doesn't steer the conversation toward the sale.

3. Integrates with the CRM

The AI needs to read the customer's history and record what it found out. Ask how the integration works with the CRM you use and what happens to the conversations. AI outside the CRM creates one more place where information gets lost.

4. Writes down limits and handoffs to people

Ask to see how the partner defines what the AI never does and at what point it hands the conversation to a person. Discounts, special terms, serious complaints and requests for a human agent usually stay with the team. If the answer is "the AI handles everything," that's a red flag.

5. Trains the team

AI changes the routine of sales reps and support agents. The partner should plan training for the people who work alongside it, not just for whoever administers the tool.

6. Measures in sales

Ask which metric will be used to say whether the project worked. A good answer talks about response time, stage-by-stage conversion, meetings that actually happened and sales. A weak answer talks about messages answered and contacts served.

7. Sticks around after implementation

AI needs tuning: an up-to-date knowledge base, rules reviewed, conversations read. Ask who does that after the project goes live and how often.

8. Handles data carefully

Conversations contain personal data. Ask where the data is stored, who has access, how long it's kept and how customers are told they're talking to a virtual assistant. The partner doesn't replace your legal team, but it should have clear answers. See also LGPD (Brazil's data protection law) and AI on WhatsApp.

9. Makes clear who owns what

If the contract ends, what stays with the company? Conversation history, knowledge base, written rules and configurations should be defined in the contract. This point is easy to forget and expensive to fix later.

Take Nexo's free assessment and walk into the conversation with any partner already knowing which process to fix first.
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Questions to ask in the first meeting

• Which process in our funnel would you tackle first, and why?
• How do you measure the starting point before implementation?
• Which metric will tell us whether the project worked?
• What will the AI absolutely not do?
• How does the handoff of the conversation to the sales rep work? What does the rep receive?
• How does the AI connect to our CRM?
• Who updates the knowledge base after implementation?
• How will the team be trained?
• Does the project start with a pilot? What's the criterion for expanding or ending it?
• If we end the contract, what stays with the company?

Pay less attention to the technical answer and more to the clarity. A good partner answers simply and admits when something depends on the assessment.

Red flags

• Promises to replace the sales or customer service team.
• Promises a numeric result before getting to know your operation.
• Shows only a generic demo and doesn't ask about your process.
• Has no answer for handing the conversation off to a person.
• Suggests hiding from customers that they're talking to an AI.
• Proposes a long contract with no pilot and no decision criterion.
• Measures success in messages sent.
• Doesn't explain where the data is stored.

How to compare proposals

Put the proposals side by side and check whether each one addresses these items:

A proposal that doesn't address these items isn't cheaper. It's incomplete. The missing part will show up later as cost, or as a pilot that goes nowhere. The most common reasons are in why AI projects don't get past the pilot.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a partner to implement AI in my company?

It depends on the project. For individual use, like writing and summarizing, an off-the-shelf tool and a usage policy are enough. When the AI will talk to customers, use the CRM and be measured in sales, a partner who designs the process and runs the AI reduces the risk.

What should I ask a company that implements AI?

Which process it would tackle first, how it measures the starting point, which metric defines success, what the AI won't do, how the handoff to the sales rep works, how it integrates with the CRM and who tunes the AI after implementation.

What are the red flags when hiring AI implementation?

Promises to replace the team, numbers promised before the assessment, a generic demo with no questions about your process, no handoff to people and success measured in messages sent.

Is it better to hire a platform or a consulting firm?

A platform works when the company has a designed process and someone with time to configure and run it. A consulting firm that implements makes more sense when the process design, the CRM integration or the internal capacity to monitor the operation is missing.

Conclusion

The right partner to implement AI starts with your funnel, writes down the limits, integrates the AI with the CRM, trains the team and measures results in sales. Take the questions in this article to the first meeting and compare proposals by what they say about process, metrics and operation, not by the demo.

Want to know where AI pays off first in your sales operation before talking to any vendor? Take Nexo's free assessment.
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Nexo is a sales consulting firm that builds its own software. See how it runs AI implementation in companies.