Technology providers
Industrial customers now buy not only technology but also an answer to whether it is compliant and understandable
The AI Business Center Foundation (AIBC) is a think tank and advisory partner that helps the boards of construction, industrial and technical-services companies adopt artificial intelligence so that it delivers measurable results and builds competitive advantage. We help technology providers prepare for the questions these customers ask them.
Features are no longer the deciding factor in tenders. Answers to the purchasing department’s questions have become the deciding factor
Large customers in industry and construction increasingly ask technology providers questions that were not raised before: what role the provider plays under the AI Act, what documentation it can hand over, where data is processed, who is responsible for the model’s output and how to measure the effect of the implementation. A provider with organised answers to these questions shortens the sales cycle.
How cost and risk arise
Implementations at industrial customers usually stall not on the technology but at the interfaces: no process description on the customer’s side, no AI-ready data, unanswered legal questions, an unclear division of responsibility. The provider pays for this with extended pilots and projects that never reach scale.
Segments
- Integrators and software houses: implementations at customers who have not described their processes.
- AI system providers: role under the AI Act, documentation, transparency, product description.
What the Foundation does for technology providers
- Compliance: the provider or deployer role, a map of obligations with dates, preparation of documentation. AI Act and ESG compliance
- AIBC Certification Path: preparing the organisation for conformity assessment, and an AIBC attestation with a stated scope and date. AIBC Certification Path
- Product description: language in which the customer’s board and a language model understand the product; measurement of how models describe and recommend the product. Brand research in language models
- Method on the customer’s side: semantic transformation, that is, organising a company’s names, processes and data so that people, language models and board reports understand them the same way, as preparation of the customer for implementation.
Neutrality principle
The Foundation is vendor-neutral: we do not sell licences or implementations. We act on the board’s side — we help choose the contractor, prepare requirements and criteria, run the procurement procedure or tender, and assess bids and contractor quality. The board makes the decision. We do not act as an intermediary in sales, and we do not recommend providers to clients in return for working with the Foundation.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Foundation recommend technology providers to its clients?
Not in return for working with the Foundation. We act on the client board’s side — we help choose the contractor, prepare requirements and criteria, run the procurement procedure or tender, and assess bids and contractor quality. The board makes the decision, and a provider's work with the Foundation gives it no priority in the projects of the Foundation's clients.
How does the Foundation help an AI system provider?
By establishing its role under the AI Act, a map of obligations with dates, the documentation an industrial customer usually wants to see, and a product description that the customer's board understands, as do the language models that increasingly prepare the shortlist of vendors.
Is an integrator also a provider under the AI Act?
That depends on what it does with the system: whether it places it on the market under its own name, substantially modifies it, or only configures it for the customer. We carry out this assessment together with the company's legal adviser on the basis of the specific case, without settling it on this page.
Let’s start with a conversation
Arrange a conversation about the questions that most often hold up sales to industry.