Look for business and technical capability together
AI transformation requires commercial judgement, workflow design, systems architecture, engineering and adoption. A partner that only covers one layer will push the integration burden back onto the client.
Ask how the team connects business cases to technical choices and how those choices survive real operating constraints.
Ask how they get from pilot to production
A strong partner should be able to explain data, permissions, integrations, testing, exceptions, human review, ownership and measurement.
Demo quality is not the same as production quality.
Check whether they build capability or dependency
The best implementation leaves the organisation better able to deploy the next workflow. Reusable patterns, governance and internal confidence are part of the return.
The relationship should compound capability rather than make every new opportunity dependent on starting again.