Picking AI Partners You Can Trust

The AI tool you’re excited about today could be acquired, reshuffled, or gone six months from now and that possibility can make any business owner hesitate. I unpack a question I hear constantly from leaders investing in AI for workflow automation and team support: what happens if the company we partner with gets bought by private equity, purchased by a strategic, or simply doesn’t make it?

We zoom out from the logo and talk about what you’re actually buying when you “buy AI.” The real value usually comes from execution: the people who learn your business, map your processes, build the integrations, and collaborate with you until the system is genuinely useful. When you take time to know the engineer doing the work and the team responsible for delivery, you reduce AI vendor risk in a way that contracts alone can’t. Those relationships create continuity, because the knowledge of your workflows and decisions lives with people, not a brand name.

I also share a simple mindset for AI due diligence that fits the reality of venture-backed AI startups: accept that not everyone wins, then protect your project by prioritizing trust, documentation, and the humans behind the build. If you’re trying to scale AI implementation without getting trapped by uncertainty, this conversation will help you move forward with clearer eyes and a steadier plan.

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I'm Craig Francisco, CEO , Vistage Speaker and 30 year Operator. I help privately held and family businesses turn their hard-earned domain intelligence into an advantage AI can't hand your competitor down the street. If your team is wrestling with where to start, the best place to begin is a conversation: www.craigfrancisco.com 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hey everyone, it's Craig. I had an interesting conversation I wanted to share with all of you because I think it's relevant. Relevant to all of us that are investing in AI, you know, looking to bring this technology into our business, you know, help automate workflows, help support our teams, and really just leverage all that it can be. The question that comes up all the time in my conversations, especially in like little vestige workshops, would be you know, what happens, Craig, if you know the company we're working with ceases to exist

Why AI Vendor Risk Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:53

or gets bought by private equity or purchased by a strategic. And these questions are coming up because it's new. Everything's new. All the technology is still, you know, within what, two, three years now, there's so much money, venture capital behind a lot of businesses. They, you know, have bet on a certain path that they are going to execute. No, not everyone

The Fear Of Shutdowns And Buyouts

SPEAKER_00 1:20

is going to win. I mean, that's just that's just the facts, right? It's it's scary then for business owners because they're picking a company to partner with. And they're like, man, what happens if I'm six, seven months in this thing, and all of a sudden they're gone? It's a great question. So I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I really believe one way around this potentially is when you are partnering with a business, and you have that, you know, that little bit of that fear that's that's bubbling up. Make sure you understand the people behind it. Because at the end of the day, the the people that know how to execute, that know your business, that care to understand your processes, your people, your systems, and strong engineering team or person behind

The Real Hedge Relationships

SPEAKER_00 2:23

it that cares to go deep and really listen to you and collaborate with you and help create something that is super valuable. Those people aren't being sold, right? They're not being purchased by private equity or yeah, they may go with a company, but they may not. So I think it's relationships like it always has been in business, building relationships with the right people and having that trust at a super high level to where you know it's possible that you can still do business with those people that you know, like, and trust and that care about your business no matter where they are, uh, no matter what brand is over the top of them. I think that's really important. I really do. And take the time to get to know the folks that are doing the work. In a session I was in, you know, last week, someone making an investment in a company out of San Francisco, you know, seem to be a good business. They're backed by several million dollars of venture capital. And the you know, the concern is legit. Like, what happens if it doesn't work? What happens if they they change the path? I get all of it, but get to know the people. Get to know you know the person that's learning your business, get to know the engineer that's doing the work. Because that's where the magic is. That's it's happening. It's this new way of collaborating, maximizing the technology. Those people will still be around, you know. So just keep that in mind. I think it's a great way to look at

Vet The People Doing The Work

SPEAKER_00 4:01

it differently versus look at oh, this company's six months old, or this company's brand new, because the people behind it aren't. So think about that. Hopefully, it's helpful.