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What we say no to, and why

A firm that says yes to everything cannot promise production. These are the requests we decline, each with the engineering reason. If yours is on the list, this page just saved us both a call.

  1. 01

    A staffing bench or a managed service desk

    Our format is one to three senior engineers who pair with yours and hand over. A bench needs layers; a 24/7 desk needs a rota. Neither is what we are good at.

  2. 02

    A demo for a board meeting

    A demo has no user, so it cannot have an evaluation suite, and no AI feature we build is done without one. If the goal is a decision, the assessment gives the board a ranked roadmap or a written no instead.

  3. 03

    Work without access to the systems it depends on

    Retrieval, evaluation and monitoring all need the real data path. Without access we would be guessing, and we would rather say so than invoice for it.

  4. 04

    A chatbot over content nobody maintains

    Retrieval is only as good as the corpus. If no one owns the content, the answers rot and the evaluation suite shows it.

  5. 05

    “AI” where a lookup table or a rule would do

    If a correct answer can be written as a rule, a rule is cheaper, faster, testable and reversible. The assessment says so in writing when that is the case.

  6. 06

    Autonomous actions with no reversal path

    An agent that can act must have a human approval point or a rollback. We scope an agent’s tools and approval points before it reaches production.

  7. 07

    A pilot with no named user

    Without one person who will use the result weekly there is no feedback loop, no evaluation data and no honest demo every two weeks.

The written no

Part of the assessment’s job is to say no to use cases that will not pay off. When it does, you receive it in writing:

  1. 01The use case, as we understood it.
  2. 02The blocker: data, verifiability, ownership, or that a conventional solution fits better.
  3. 03What would have to change for the answer to become yes.

If you can hire the team you need in the time you have, we will say that too.

Still want to talk?

Tell us the problem. We reply within two business days with a yes, a no, or the one question we need answered first.

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