Diligence for AI projects

Don't bet six figures on the wrong AI.

We rate the real AI vendors on capability, financials, references, team, and price — then tell you which one to pick. No months of research. No six-figure mistake.

Self-serve tool, or we run the whole evaluation with you.
thinkfill · decision scan
0confidence
Use case
Scanning the market…
matched to: support automation · SOC 2 · <$2k/mo · 50-seat team
vendorcapfinrefteampricematch
Helix Support AI9788$1.6k92
Quanta Desk8877$1.9k87
Verdant Reply8676$1.4k81
Norpath Agents7988$2.0k78
Lumen Helpdesk7567$1.1k70
Bricklayer.ai6656$0.9k62
Octave Service5767$2.4k55
▸ recommended: Helix Support AI — strongest capability + financial rating for your needs
scanned 0 / 23 vendors
What we kept hearing

We asked ~190 people what scares them about buying AI.

The answers were oddly consistent. Almost nobody worried about the tech itself. They worried about the money, the time, and picking the thing that turns out wrong. Here's what they actually said.

"Wasting money to find out the tool couldn't do what we thought it could."

// cost · the #1 fear

"I picked a chatbot platform that's huge in the market — then realized it wasn't good for our use case. The project failed."

// poor fit

"Filtering the signal from the noise. The hard part is knowing which tools actually fit my workflow versus the ones that are just hype."

// hype vs. reality

"Trusting their outputs enough to let them influence real decisions, without losing human judgment."

// trust

"That it becomes obsolete before we even finish testing and deploying it."

// moving too fast

"No fear, really — just wasting valuable time."

// the quiet one everybody feels
Who it's for

For the person who has to make the call.

If you'll be the one blamed for picking wrong, start here.

Founders & operators

You want AI to take work off your plate

Automating the busywork, or just figuring out where to start. You don't have months to burn testing tools that might not pan out.

CTOs & eng leaders

Your team should be shipping, not sitting in demos

We handle the vendor diligence — capability, security, how it holds up at scale — so your engineers stay heads-down on the product.

Product leaders

You're putting an AI feature in the product

You need a partner you can trust at scale. We rate them so the vendor you build on doesn't fall over six months in.

What people build

What teams actually point AI at.

We asked nearly 900 people what they want AI to do for them. The demand clusters in a handful of places — and these are exactly the projects we help you pick a vendor for.

21%share of requests

Workflow & task automation

The biggest bucket by far. Automating repetitive work, scraping and parsing data, wiring up integrations — the classic "just make this run itself."

16%share of requests

Marketing & content creation

Writing copy and blogs, explainer and marketing videos, SEO, running campaigns.

13%share of requests

Research & analysis

Market and competitive research, summarizing, pulling insights out of a pile of sources.

11%share of requests

Coding, apps & software

Websites, APIs, no-code app generation — 'build a SaaS from a prompt.'

9%share of requests

Sales & lead generation

Lead research, outreach, prospecting, keeping the CRM clean.

6%share of requests

Scheduling, admin & assistant

Calendar, inbox, the everyday assistant work nobody wants to do.

6%share of requests

Customer support & service

Support tickets, service chatbots, client onboarding.

What we figure out

Five questions, answered in order.

Most AI projects skip straight to "which tool?" That's the wrong place to start. We work the decision in the order that actually de-risks it.

01

Are you ready?

Before anything else: your data, your team, your use case. We tell you where AI will pay off soon — and where it won't yet, no matter what you buy.

02

Where to start

The one or two use cases worth doing first. Biggest payoff, least risk. Not the shiny one — the one that earns trust and budget for the next.

03

Who's actually out there

The real vendor map for your problem, including the strong tools you'd never find past the marketing of the big names. We do the scanning so your team doesn't.

04

How to rate them

We rate each vendor on what actually matters: capability against your use case, financial stability, customer references, the team's track record, and real pricing — weighted to your requirements, not a star rating from strangers.

05

Run the evals

We pressure-test the finalists — capability checks against your data, reference calls, the true cost laid side by side — and hand you a ranked recommendation with the reasoning, so you can defend the call to your team.

Two ways to work with us

Want the report, or want it handled?

Plenty of folks told us they weren't sure which they needed yet. That's fine — start with the tool and step up to a team if the decision's big enough.

The tool · self-serve

The diligence report

Tell us your goal in plain English. Our system turns it into requirements, rates the vendors, and hands your team a ranked recommendation to act on.

  • Your needs turned into clear requirements
  • Vendors rated: capability, financials, references, team, price
  • True-cost comparison, apples to apples
  • A ranked recommendation, with the reasoning
// priced for a single decision, not a retainer
Start with the report
Managed services · done with you

We run the evaluation

For decisions too big to get wrong. Our team handles it end to end — readiness, shortlist, the actual evals, and support through implementation.

  • Everything in the report, run for you
  • Capability tests and reference calls on the finalists
  • A proof-of-concept before you commit
  • Support through go-live, not just the pick
// scoped to the project, talk to us
Talk about managed services
Why us, not a directory
~45%

of the people we surveyed said they'd be very disappointed if they couldn't use Thinkfill for their next AI search.

A software directory

Ranks tools by who paid for placement and how many stars strangers left.

Thinkfill

Rates each vendor on capability, financials, references, team and price — matched to your needs.

A consultant

Months of calls, a big retainer, and an answer shaped by who they already know.

Thinkfill

A scored, defensible call in weeks — built on the whole market, not a rolodex.

Reach out today

Got an AI project on the line? Let's de-risk it.

Tell us what you're trying to do. We'll tell you straight whether you're ready, where to start, and who's worth your time.