Are Your Vendors AI-Ready, or AI-Washed?
A scored evaluation framework for separating vendors with real AI integration depth from those with a marketing-only AI story.
- A scored profile across 6 dimensions — see exactly where you're strong and where the gaps are.
- Your biggest opportunities, mapped to specific next moves.
- A personalized video walkthrough from Shawn (optional) — a real read on your results.
Most enterprise AI vendor evaluations don't get the right answer because they don't ask the right questions. The salesperson controls the demo, the case studies are anonymized, and the architecture conversation never quite happens. Eighteen months later, the AI features turn out to be a thin UI on top of a foundation-model API, the named customers were on the legacy product, and the contract language doesn't constrain anything the vendor is actually doing.
This free scorecard separates vendors with real AI integration depth from vendors with a marketing-only AI story. It scores vendor maturity across six dimensions in about six minutes — model architecture, data governance, customer outcomes, technical sales depth, transparency, and portability — and is built from 27 years of technology leadership across Fortune 500 and growth-stage companies.
What the vendor AI maturity scorecard measures
Maturity is a profile, not a single number. The scorecard scores six dimensions independently so you can see exactly where the vendor is real and where they're washed: Model Architecture Depth (do they own and operate the model layer or just wrap an API), Data Governance Posture (where your data goes and whose models it trains), Customer-Outcome Evidence (can they produce named customers with measurable AI outcomes), Technical Depth in Pre-Sales (do hard architecture questions get hard answers or marketing pivots), Transparency & Audit (can you audit what the AI did and why), and Portability & Exit (can you take your data and configurations with you). The final question maps the specific AI-washing red flags you're most worried about across architecture, governance, outcomes, sales motion, audit, and lock-in.
Why vendor AI maturity matters before you sign
Organizations that treat AI vendor selection as a feature comparison end up locked into vendors whose AI capabilities don't hold up under load — and whose contracts don't constrain the things that matter. The teams that get this right do three things others skip: they pressure-test architecture with someone past the salesperson, they get three named reference calls on the specific AI feature (not the broader product), and they tie the AI claims they were sold to contract obligations on training, residency, audit, and portability. A scorecard turns a vague "is this real?" question into a sequenced evaluation, and it tells you whether the gap to close is architectural, contractual, or simply about who you talk to next.
What you get at the end
You'll see an overall vendor AI maturity score, a band that describes where the vendor stands (from AI-Washed through AI-Native), a per-dimension breakdown, and a map of the AI-washing red flags most relevant to your evaluation. From there you can request a personalized video walkthrough — a short, recorded read on your specific results and what a fractional Chief AI Officer engagement would do to harden your vendor evaluation and contract terms before you sign. No generic sales deck.
Frequently asked questions
What is a vendor AI maturity assessment?
It's a structured evaluation of whether an enterprise SaaS vendor has real AI integration depth or is wrapping a foundation-model API and calling it AI. Rather than measuring the vendor's marketing, it measures architecture, data governance, customer outcomes, sales-engineering depth, audit transparency, and portability — the things that determine whether the AI you're being sold will hold up under production load and survive a CISO review.
How long does the assessment take?
About six minutes. It's 18 scored questions across six dimensions plus a final red-flag mapping question. Your progress auto-saves, so you can leave and resume without losing answers.
Is the assessment free?
Yes. The assessment and your scored results are completely free. You can optionally request a personalized video walkthrough of your results, which is also free.
Who is this assessment for?
It's built for CIOs, CTOs, heads of architecture, procurement leads, and CISOs evaluating AI-enabled SaaS vendors — and for executives who need to separate vendors with real AI capability from vendors who repackaged existing features after the AI hype cycle.
What's the difference between AI-washed and AI-native?
AI-washed vendors built a thin UI on top of an off-the-shelf model API, can't produce named customers using the AI features specifically, and lose technical depth as soon as you press past sales. AI-native vendors own or operate the model layer, have measurable customer outcomes on the AI features, can defend the architecture under pressure, expose audit logs and explainability, and let you leave with your data and configurations intact.