16 June 20264 min read
How to evaluate an AI consulting partner: a CTO's checklist
Most AI consultancies sell decks or dependency. A few transfer real capability onto your team. Six questions that tell the difference before you sign.

Short version: most AI consultancies sell one of two things, a strategy deck or a dependency, and both leave your team where it started. A few actually transfer the capability onto your developers, so you own it when they leave. The way to tell them apart isn't the pitch. It's six questions: do they build or only advise, do they work on your stack or impose a rebuild, does your team own the result, do they augment your developers or replace them, can they show production rather than demos, and are they honest about when you don't need them.
Start with what you're actually buying#
Before you compare vendors, name the thing you want to walk away with. It usually isn't a roadmap, and it isn't seats. It's capability: your team able to run AI agents on your codebase, in production, after the engagement ends. Hold every partner against that outcome. A lot of spend in this market buys activity that looks like progress (workshops, audits, a platform login) without moving you closer to it.