Vendor Demos
Over the last few months, my team has been exploring AI vendors to support our team’s effort in building digital learning content. Some areas we are interested in include translation, text-to-speech, coding challenges, and sales practice.
I sat through a series of demos and have some observations about what worked and what didn’t.
What worked:
Vendors that asked a few key questions and then dove into a relevant demo
Vendors that prepared examples in advance based on our business
Vendors that quickly followed up with the recordings
What didn’t work:
Vendors that spent the whole time asking us questions about our company/team rather than showing us the product.
Vendors that spent time on features we didn’t ask for when we explicitly asked about other functionality.
Vendors who said it wasn’t possible to access a sandbox/trial account to test out some use cases.
Maybe our dealbreakers are unrealistic, but that's what we need to defend the purchase to our Enterprise Architecture Review Board.
Having been involved in vendor selection from procurement through contracts, the demos are key to making your decision. That’s their time to shine, so make sure you are very clear about exactly what you need to see and try to set everyone up for success.
