What to ask an AI agency before you sign

Before the contract, the actual job

OMNI101 Studio, 24 October 2026. An agency that talks about artificial intelligence can show a smooth demo and leave a vague assignment in the contract. Before you sign, ask which job in your process changes next week. Not the sector in the abstract. The step: a reply draft, a quote row, a page, a list. If the step cannot be named, there is no assignment yet.

Also ask what stays the same. A tool that proposes text does not replace the person who knows the client, the price and the constraint. If the agency describes only what switches on, and not what a person must still do, the scope is incomplete. The contract should name both.

Data, limits and who decides

Ask which data enter the tool and which must not. Client messages, price lists, names, internal files: for each, where they are read, whether they leave the studio, how long they stay. Ask for a list, not an adjective. Secure does not say whether a document stays in your space or is sent elsewhere.

Ask who may accept a result. If a reply can leave, a price can be sent, or a page can go online with no responsible name, the flow has no edge. The name can be yours or someone you name. It has to exist before signature, not after the first mistake.

Ask what happens when the result is wrong. A correction, a new draft, a stop. An assignment without that step forces you to discover it in production. Also ask whether you can take texts, configuration and access with you if you end the relationship, and in what format.

Price, time and what is not included

Ask for the figure in two parts, if both exist: what you pay to stand the first flow up, and what you pay to keep it on. Ask what that figure does not include: extra connections, copy written instead of you, training for more people, urgencies, volume past a threshold. One figure with no exclusions is not a quote. It is a title.

Ask for the date of the first usable version and who must be present to approve it. A schedule that depends on your materials should say so, with the list of materials. If the agency does not separate its time from the time it waits for you, the slip becomes an argument. Better to write it first.

Ask how a proof is read. A demo on sample data shows the mechanism. It does not show your price list, your tone, your awkward cases. Ask for a proof on your material, even a small one, before a long commitment. If that is not possible, ask why, and what you risk by signing without having seen it.

How to recognise a useful answer

A useful answer is specific. It names the step, the human yes, the data that do not enter, the starting price and the cost that stays, the exclusions, the date of the first version. A useless answer talks about transformation, about results not measured in your work, or about tools by name instead of the flow. If you hear a product name and you do not hear who presses send, ask again.

Do not sign on the sentence that the agency will use a famous model. The model changes. Your need does not: a described task, a boundary on data, a person who approves, a way to stop. This article does not score agencies and does not report how many businesses have signed. It lists the questions. You read the answers on your own case.

If you want to see how OMNI101 Studio places an assistant inside a flow, with a draft and a check, the linked offer is the assistant offer. The terms and the from figures are there, not in this guide.