How to choose an AI automation agency

1. Whose accounts will the workflows, AI platforms and phone numbers live in? The right answer is yours.
2. Where will our data be stored and processed, by which vendors, in which countries?
3. Will every vendor that touches sensitive data sign the right agreement? For US health data that means a business associate agreement; for UAE health data, in-country storage unless an exception applies.
4. What happens when a step fails? Ask to see the alerting and retry design, not just the happy path.
5. Who will actually build it, and who will we talk to each week?
6. Can you show a similar workflow you built, running in production?
7. Can we speak to two clients?
8. How is the project priced: fixed per milestone, time and materials, or a monthly subscription?
9. What are the running costs we'll pay vendors each month, and how do they scale?
10. How do you test before launch? For AI steps, ask what test set they use and what counts as a pass.
11. Which AI models will you use, and why that one?
12. Which steps will a person approve before anything is sent or changed?
13. What do we get at handover: logins, documentation, a recorded walkthrough?
14. What does support cost after launch, and what is the response time?
15. If we stop working together, what do we need to do to keep it running?

• The workflows live in the agency's account. If you stop paying, they stop running. This also creates licensing questions: n8n's licence, for example, doesn't allow selling n8n itself as a hosted service to others.
• No logs, no alerts. If nobody is told when a step fails, the first person to notice is a customer.
• "Fully automated, no humans needed." Anything that sends money, changes a medical or financial record, or speaks to customers in a new way should have a person approving it until it has earned trust.
• Guaranteed ROI or savings figures before they've seen your data.
• Certifications they can't show you. Ask for the certificate or audit report; "HIPAA compliant" isn't a certificate.
• Patient or customer data sent through tools that won't sign the agreements your data needs. Zapier, for example, says PHI isn't supported on its platform.
• A per-minute or per-task price with no setup line, which usually means setup is hidden in the rate.

• A description of your current process in your own words, so you can see they understood it.
• The future process, step by step, including where a person approves.
• Every system involved and where each stores data.
• Milestones with a fixed price and a date for each.
• Expected monthly running costs, by vendor, with the assumptions.
• What is out of scope.
• Testing approach, handover contents and support terms.

We're an agency, so this section is self-interested. Here are our answers, so you can hold us to them and compare. More detail is on how we work and Encnt at a glance.