Every business knowledge layer demo looks good, because a demo runs on tidy sample data. Your business won't be that tidy. These five questions work on any vendor, including us, and each one comes with a test: something to ask them to show you on the call, rather than a promise to take on trust. None of them needs a technical background to ask.
1. What does it hold, and what does it leave alone?
A good knowledge layer holds meaning and leaves figures to the systems that own them. If a vendor offers to copy your accounts or CRM into it, you're buying a second copy that will drift.
Ask them to show you: a question that needs a number, and where the number came from.
2. Whose is it?
You should be able to walk away with it. That means plain files, in your own accounts, that open without the vendor's software.
Ask them to show you: the files, in a folder you can open yourself.
3. Who can see what?
Each person should see only what they could already see before the knowledge layer existed. That has to be proved in your setup, not assumed.
Ask them to show you: the same question asked by two people with different access, and the two different answers.
4. Who can change it?
Routine updates can go straight in. Changes about people, pay or personal information should wait for a named person to approve them.
Ask them to show you: a sensitive change waiting for approval, and who approves it.
5. What happens after go-live?
Someone has to look after it once it's live, and it has to admit when it doesn't know something.
Ask them to show you: last month's upkeep note, and an answer that says "we don't have this".
Most of these tests can run on a demo call. The access test only means something in your own setup, so ask when and where it'll be run.
Bring this list to every demo
- Ask for a question that needs a number
- Ask to open the files yourself
- Ask for the two-person access test
- Ask to see a change waiting for approval
- Ask for last month's upkeep note
A quick example
A practice manager is comparing two vendors. Both say their answers respect each person's access. Only one runs the two-person test on the call, and that's the one she can compare on price.
Where to start
Pick the two questions that matter most to your business, and ask for the test before you ask for a price.
Common questions
Can we use these questions on a knowledge layer we already have?
Yes. They work just as well as a check-up on one you already pay for.
Which of the five questions matters most?
For most businesses it's whose it is. If you can't open the files without the vendor's software, you don't really own it.
Do these questions work for any vendor?
Yes. None of them depends on a particular AI or platform.
Will AI Collab answer these about its own Business Brain?
Yes. We'll talk through all five on a discovery call. The access test runs in your own setup at hand-over, because that's the only place it means anything.