AI TRAINING
AI Vendor Selection and Procurement Essentials
Equip procurement and technology leaders to evaluate, negotiate, and onboard AI vendors with confidence.
What it covers
This programme teaches procurement teams and CIO office stakeholders how to structure AI vendor evaluations from first contact to signed contract. Participants learn to build robust RFP templates, define meaningful evaluation criteria, assess data governance and IP clauses, run comparative benchmarks, and spot red flags in vendor proposals. The format combines structured instruction with hands-on workshops using real-world vendor documents and live scoring exercises. By the end, teams leave with reusable toolkits—RFP templates, scorecards, and data clause libraries—ready to deploy on their next procurement cycle.
What you'll be able to do
- Draft a complete, AI-specific RFP with weighted evaluation criteria ready to send to vendors
- Apply a structured scoring scorecard to compare at least three competing AI vendor proposals
- Identify and redline problematic data ownership, model training, and IP clauses in vendor contracts
- Design a benchmarking protocol using representative business data to stress-test vendor claims
- Recognise five common red flags in AI vendor demos and proposals and articulate business risk for each
Topics covered
- Building AI-specific RFP templates and scoring rubrics
- Defining evaluation criteria: capability, scalability, security, and support
- Data ownership, data processing, and IP clause negotiation
- Benchmarking AI vendor performance on representative tasks
- Identifying red flags in vendor proposals and demo environments
- Vendor risk assessment: financial stability, model drift, and lock-in risk
- Regulatory compliance checks (GDPR, AI Act readiness)
- Onboarding and SLA design for AI-powered services
Delivery
Delivered as a 2–3 day in-person or virtual instructor-led programme, typically split into four half-day sessions to accommodate busy schedules. Each session combines 40% structured instruction with 60% hands-on exercises using anonymised real vendor proposals and contract excerpts. Participants receive a toolkit package including editable RFP templates, a vendor scorecard spreadsheet, a data clause library, and a benchmarking playbook. Remote delivery uses collaborative tools (Miro, shared Google Workspace) to replicate workshop dynamics. On-site delivery recommended when the cohort spans procurement, IT, and legal functions together.
What makes it work
- Cross-functional cohort (procurement + IT + legal + business owner) completing the programme together to align on criteria before any vendor conversation begins
- Using real, anonymised vendor proposals from past or ongoing evaluations as workshop material to ground learning in lived context
- Establishing a standing AI vendor register and scorecard that is updated after every evaluation cycle to build institutional knowledge
- Engaging legal counsel early to co-own the data and IP clause library rather than treating it as a procurement-only deliverable
Common mistakes
- Using generic software RFP templates that omit AI-specific criteria such as model explainability, retraining rights, and data residency
- Evaluating vendors solely on demo performance without designing representative benchmark tasks from actual business data
- Signing contracts that grant the vendor rights to use client data for model training without explicit opt-out clauses
- Neglecting lock-in risk by not assessing data portability, API standardisation, and exit clauses before signing
When NOT to take this
This programme is not the right fit when an organisation has already shortlisted a single vendor and simply needs legal review of a draft contract — in that case, targeted legal counsel on AI contracts is faster and more cost-effective than a full procurement programme.
Providers to consider
Sources
This training is part of a Data & AI catalog built for leaders serious about execution. Take the free diagnostic to see which trainings your team needs.