AI Enabled GCCs – Blog 3: Vendors Are Not Magicians — How to Assess AI Maturity Before You Get Catfished

Subtitle: Just because they dropped “ChatGPT” into the RFP doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing.

Based on the white paper “Establishing and Managing GCCs – A Sourcing & Procurement Professional’s Guide, 2025.”

If your vendor proposal reads like a sci-fi novel but crashes at demo day, start here.

Let’s paint a familiar scene.

Your inbox dings. A vendor has replied to your RFP. Their executive summary includes words like “transformative,” “hyper-automation,” and “AI-first culture.” By paragraph three, they’ve promised a team of “machine learning ninjas” and a generative AI roadmap more ambitious than OpenAI’s.

You scroll to the technical section.

It’s… a chatbot.

And the chatbot gets your company’s name wrong.

Welcome to the AI Vendor Maturity Trap

In 2025, everyone says they do AI. But “we built a proof-of-concept once in 2021” is not the same as “we can run enterprise-grade MLOps at scale with responsible AI governance.”

So here’s your field guide to assessing AI maturity without getting fooled by smoke, mirrors, or Canva enhanced slide decks.

✅ What Real AI Maturity Looks Like (No Crystal Ball Required)

1. They’ve Deployed Something. In Production. Recently.
   Ask: “Show us live use cases, not PoCs.” Things they have done at scale  Reference calls with those un-named clients , heck yes!
   If their case study starts with “a client we can’t name” and ends with “we learned a lot,” you’ve got a problem.
2. They Understand AI Infrastructure
   Bonus points if they don’t need to Google “MLOps.”
   Ask about model retraining frequency, drift detection, and CI/CD pipelines. If you get a blank stare, walk away. 
3. They Know Data Governance Is Not Optional
   No, “we encrypt stuff” is not a governance framework.
   Demand specifics: data lineage, anonymization protocols, and DPDP/DPPA/GDPR compliance. Don’t settle for a vague nod toward “privacy by design.”
4. They’ve Thought About Ethics (Beyond Their Tagline)
   Ask for bias testing procedures, model explainability standards, and ethical AI certifications (if they exist).
   Red flag: “We leave ethics to the client.”
5. Their AI Talent Isn’t Just a Slide of Stock Photos
   Request: resumes, org charts, ongoing upskilling programs.
   Great vendors showcase actual named resources who have built and scaled AI before—not just hired a prompt engineer last week. Talk to these AI Talent and their A team and their B team. You will probably not be getting all the A team but that is ok, so make sure you understand the B team and what it means.

🛑 Red Flags That Scream “PretendAI”

• Their chatbot demo starts with “Hi, how can I help you?” and ends in “I didn’t understand that.”
• No documentation of their AI stack, no mention of MLOps, no references that can speak to AI results.
• They refer to GenAI as “that new Microsoft thing.”
• The “Innovation” team is just one intern with a ChatGPT Plus subscription.
• Their proposal includes one AI slide—copied from Gartner—with no annotations.

🧾 The AI Vendor Maturity Checklist (Because Slide Decks Lie)

Use this 5-point scoring framework from the whitepaper:

Dimension	Questions to Ask	Green Flag
AI Track Record	What AI use cases have you deployed at scale?	Multiple real-world examples with metrics
Infrastructure	How do you maintain and monitor deployed models?	Full MLOps lifecycle with automation and retraining
Talent	Who builds your models? Can we meet them?	Certified engineers with domain + ML experience
Data Governance	How do you handle data access, storage, and compliance?	Clear, policy-based, compliant with India’s DPDP Act
Ethics & Risk	How do you test for bias, explainability, and model failure modes?	Documented ethical AI policies and audits

🧠 TL;DR for the Procurement Inbox Warrior

• If it sounds like AI marketing poetry, it probably is.
• Ask for proof, metrics, and people with last names.
• Assess infrastructure, not just “innovation theater.”
• Ethics, data governance, and MLOps maturity matter more than flashy pitch decks.
• Catfish-proof your contracts: require model transparency, IP rights, and SLAs for retraining and model accuracy.

📥 Get serious about AI sourcing.
The whitepaper includes:

• An AI maturity assessment matrix
• RFP templates with real questions
• Sample contract clauses for AI governance

👉 Download the full guide and stop rewarding vendors for using the word “transformational”.

We’ve got a 30+ page answer for you. Drop us a note and we will send the complete white paper to you, no cost.
👉info@two93.com