How to choose an AI evaluation partner: 10 questions to ask

Many teams eventually bring in an outside partner for AI evaluation, testing or human data — to move faster, get independent results or access specialised raters. The quality gap between vendors is large. These questions help you tell the difference.

1. How will you design the evaluation around our product?

A good partner starts from your use case, users and launch decision — not a generic benchmark.

2. How are raters recruited, trained and calibrated?

Ask about domain and language qualifications, training material, calibration rounds and how underperforming raters are handled.

3. How do you measure quality and agreement?

Look for gold-standard checks, inter-rater agreement tracking and adjudication of disagreements.

4. Is the methodology reproducible?

You should receive versioned test sets, rubrics and enough detail to re-run the evaluation yourself.

5. How do you handle our data and confidentiality?

Ask about NDAs, access controls, data retention and deletion, and whether your data is ever used for other customers or training.

6. What does the deliverable look like?

Request a sample report. It should contain findings, severity, examples and clear recommendations — not just a score.

7. Can you start with a pilot?

A small scoped pilot lets you judge quality before committing to a larger program.

8. How do you combine automated and human evaluation?

Rigorous partners use automation for scale and humans for nuance, and validate automated judges against human labels.

9. How fast can you scale up or down?

Understand ramp-up time, minimum volumes and how quality is maintained at scale.

10. Are your claims verifiable?

Be cautious of unverifiable client logos or headline metrics. Ask for methodology, references where possible, and a pilot.

ZenXData is happy to answer all ten. Request a proposal and we'll scope a pilot around your product.