What should my contract with an AI vendor include?

How specific should the scope of work be?

I start with the action you are buying. Collect a request? Prepare a draft? Confirm a booking? Those are different jobs, with different permissions. I write down the allowed action, staff review, and evidence of completion. Take that operating scope to your attorney with the agreement. The feature list alone will not answer these questions.

Imagine a Stevenson Ranch business sending appointment requests to a staff reviewer. I would put that review step in the scope. Automatic scheduling is not part of that sample job unless it is explicitly included, configured, and tested. I want the exclusions written as plainly as the work I am agreeing to build.

What should count as acceptance?

I name the person who accepts the work and define what that person will inspect. The test record compares the expected result with the actual destination. If the assistant says it sent a request, your employee has to find that request. I check the required details there. A spoken confirmation cannot stand in for a missing record.

I also want the agreement to say how failed cases get fixed and tested again. A limited pilot is not permission to go live. Passing a demo in a test account does not settle production access, customer messages, or staff readiness. I keep those approvals separate and name who is responsible for each one.

What belongs in the account and data discussion?

I list the business accounts, vendor accounts, and connected services the build needs. Who has administrative control? How is access removed? What information reaches each provider? I bring those questions to the agreement, along with permitted data uses and limits on exporting your records, instructions, or configuration. I want you to know what you can take with you.

For legal review, I prepare a plain data map. Here is what enters the workflow. Here is where it goes next. Your adviser can use that to examine privacy, retention, and responsibility. I also ask who handles customer requests about their records and what help the vendor provides when your business has to respond.

How should support and changes be described?

After acceptance, your staff still needs a support route. I want the agreement to name what is included, how a problem is reported, and who receives it. Cover failed connections, incorrect output, and underlying platform changes. Separate urgent failures from ordinary edits. I also ask what your staff does with unfinished work while waiting for help.

Another calendar changes the job. So does turning on outbound messages. I require a written scope decision before making that kind of change. Additional work and usage need authorization, without an open-ended spending commitment. You and I settle the commercial terms in the signed agreement. An instruction edit should not quietly become a different project.

What should happen if the relationship ends?

I ask for an exit plan before the system becomes part of your operation. It needs to cover records, unfinished requests, access removal, and each party's transition duties. What materials do you receive? Which platform-dependent parts need rebuilding? I want a sample export behind the promise that your business can leave.

I test that export with fictional records. I also ask how long transition support lasts and what happens to remaining copies of business information. Your attorney should review termination language, liability, dispute terms, and restrictions on moving providers. I can show how the system works. Those legal protections need their own review before you rely on them.

What should Connor prepare before I sign?

Before you sign, I prepare an operating description you can compare with the agreement. I name the allowed actions, acceptance evidence, staff duties, and decisions still open. That gives your legal adviser something concrete to examine. For the sample Stevenson Ranch workflow, the distinction between collecting a request and booking it should be unmistakable.

I am the AI architect at Santa Clarita AI. My responsibility is to make this build understandable and testable. I resolve unclear implementation details before setup and record the limits you and I agree on. Before signing, you should understand what arrives, how it gets checked, and how your staff keeps working if the arrangement changes.

I have the staff lead read the operating attachment too. Can the person handling exceptions identify their job in that document? If not, I fix the wording before treating it as ready for implementation. That handoff is part of what I am building.