With the explosive growth in AI, there is no shortage of companies offering artificial intelligence development services. How can you evaluate different AI developers to find the one that fits the needs of your project and company?
The artificial intelligence market jumped up to $184 billion in 2024, a 37% increase from 2023. More companies than ever are offering artificial intelligence development services to meet this growing market, but they don’t all have the same expertise or track record with AI.
The use of AI is also rapidly changing as new use cases and business needs are emerging every day. Finding an AI development company that can meet your company’s unique needs and embark on custom software development can be challenging.
What criteria should you use to evaluate artificial intelligence development services in this ever-shifting landscape?
With the explosive growth in AI, many software development agencies are pivoting to AI development without any real experience with the technology. The fact is, companies with the technical expertise needed to implement AI effectively are rare. This is why 35% of business owners are anxious about the technical knowledge needed to use AI efficiently.
Due to the constantly evolving nature of AI, a development agency may not be able to show you case studies of your specific AI application, but they should be able to demonstrate a long track record of success with AI development. Look for a company with experience developing AI for your industry.
AI developers should also be able to demonstrate they know how the underlying technology works. Building custom artificial intelligence solutions requires more than the ability to integrate ChatGPT. Also look for diversity when it comes to their technology stack. Are they tied to one particular provider because of a partnership or past experience, or can they truly select the best AI tech for the user case?
In most AI projects, a kernel of AI development is surrounded by substantial non-AI development to handle data, workflows, integrations, and user interfaces. The success of an AI project is as dependent on this as it is on AI models. Look for experience in these areas when evaluating an AI development service.
Since AI projects often involve innovative new solutions, a company with expertise in custom software development will be better equipped to adapt to the unique needs of your project compared to an agency that relies more heavily on templated solutions. A track record of innovation - even in projects that don’t specifically match your AI development use case - will be a strong indicator of whether they will be able to find an innovative solution to your business case and adapt to changes as they arise throughout the software development lifecycle.
Artificial intelligence has an incredible impact on business processes and can greatly increase the speed, communication, and efficiency of a development team. However, the use of too much automation may be a red flag when evaluating AI development services.A recent Forbes study found roughly half of businesses are using AI to improve process automation, internal communications, and aggregation of business data.
While these are great ways to improve the productivity of development teams, businesses using AI to write code may run into problems. When evaluating AI developers, ask how much automation they are using. Do they rely on templates or custom development? Don’t let your artificial intelligence development services get too automated.
Avoid AI development companies that are using AI to write code. Can they really be accountable for the code they produce? This is especially common with new companies using AI as a shortcut to quickly offer AI development services. They are even less likely to understand the underlying technology enough to fix something when templates and AI developed code begin to break.
The average cost of a data breach was $4.45 million in 2023. Giving an external vendor access to your company’s data can put you at risk if their data security and privacy policies aren’t up to standards. Evaluate your AI development company’s data security protocols and breach prevention measures.
Learn how the company will handle your data, including encryption, access controls, and data masking for non-production environments. Ensure they follow secure coding standards and regularly perform penetration tests and vulnerability assessments. In the event of a data breach, review their response plan to understand how they will notify you of a security breach and what steps they will take to mitigate it.
You may also need to review their compliance with data protection regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and any industry-specific standards such as HIPAA.
Outsourcing your project to an AI development team involves working with that team for months to complete your project. Learn how their company organizes itself, how they manage outsourced development teams, and the ways they leverage the future of work. This can give you insights into whether your team will be able to work with them and whether the AI development team will be able to complete your project on time and on budget.
Contingent workforces can improve software outsourcing by introducing additional cost savings, technical expertise, and flexibility. Contingent or elastic workforces involve hiring talent on an as needed basis, usually in a freelance or contract work arrangement. This gives the AI development company access to a global talent pool to quickly find the specific artificial intelligence expertise needed for your project.
Elastic workers often bring fresh perspectives and experiences to a project, which can help fuel greater innovation. The combination of niche expertise and diverse perspectives is key to AI projects that require custom development and completely new AI use cases.
If you’re evaluating AI development services, consider Gigster’s fully-managed, on-demand teams. Gigster has more than a decade of expertise building fully custom artificial intelligence solutions. Our elastic teams can be assembled as quickly as three days to ensure you have the AI expertise needed to get your project started. Contact us to start your AI development today.
