What AI agencies sell

An AI agency is a business that sells AI work to other businesses. The work ranges from advice to software that runs every day. This site sorts agencies into eight categories.

The eight categories

• AI consulting: independent advice on AI use cases, procurement and delivery.
• AI development: custom AI software and integrations.
• AI automation: workflow automation that uses AI with human controls.
• AI agents and chatbots: conversational systems and agents with defined permissions.
• Machine learning and data science: predictive models, data analysis and model operations.
• Generative AI: systems that generate or retrieve text, images and other content.
• Computer vision: image and video analysis systems.
• AI training and strategy: staff training, governance and adoption planning.

These are the definitions that this site uses. A listing can have more than one category.

Start with the task, not the label

A category tells you what an agency says it does. It does not tell you what your task needs. Start with the business task. State who does it today, what fails and what evidence would justify a change.

A strong supplier can explain when ordinary software is enough. Ask which part of the task needs AI. Ask which part can use rules or ordinary search.

Prefer a bounded workflow

Choose a task with a clear input, a useful output and a person who can judge the result. A broad request such as "automate a department" is hard to test. A bounded workflow is easier to inspect, correct and stop.

A useful pilot can end with a decision to keep the task manual. That is a valid result.

Sources

• AIAgencies taxonomy, category names and descriptions (this site)
• AIAgencies guide: How to vet an AI agency (this site)
• AIAgencies guide: AI workflow design ideas with clear boundaries (this site)
• AIAgencies guide: Questions to ask an AI vendor before signing (this site)