How to choose an AI consultant: the Azgard Show-Me List

The Azgard Show-Me List is four things to ask an AI consultant to produce before you pay: a client you can phone by name, a system in production you can watch a non-employee use, the name of the person who will do your work, and a written answer to what you keep if you stop paying. Answers about methodology are free; only the four artifacts are checkable. A consultant with none of them is billing you to learn.

Why most AI consultant vetting checklists test the wrong thing

Most AI consultant vetting checklists test what the consultant says: methodology, frameworks, industry understanding, certifications. Every item on them is answerable by anyone who has read the same three blog posts you have, so a buyer working from one is selecting for fluency. In 2026 fluency is not a scarce skill.

The questions that work are the ones whose answers existed before you asked. A client's phone number was in somebody's contacts last week. A system in production was running on Tuesday whether you called or not. None of that can be manufactured during the call.

The Azgard Show-Me List: four things to ask an AI consultant to produce

The Azgard Show-Me List is four artifacts you ask an AI consultant to hand over before you sign. Each row either gets produced or it does not.

The rule underneath every row: ask for the thing, not the answer about the thing. Anything a consultant can only produce after you pay is a promise with your money inside it. Measurement sits inside the fourth row, in the Azgard Three-Question Vendor Filter.

Ask for a named client you can contact, not a logo wall

A named client and a contactable reference are not the same thing, and the gap is where AI consultant vetting fails. A logo proves a commercial relationship existed once. It does not prove the work shipped, that anybody still uses it, or that the client would take your call.

The ask is not "name a client." It is "name a client I can phone." Two is enough; one is enough if they answer.

Some consultants genuinely cannot publish names, because written-permission policies and NDAs are real. That is why you ask for an introduction rather than a logo.

Watch someone who is not the consultant use the system in production

Watching somebody who does not work for the consultant use the system they built is the hardest AI consultant check to fake. Credit where due: two rules predate it, both published by Sydney AI consulting firms. Kernel Flow's is that "the key is understanding if they build running systems or just write roadmap plans." Team 400's is "ask any AI company you're evaluating: how many AI systems do you have running in production right now?"

The extension is who holds the mouse. A consultant demonstrating a system proves only that they can use it. Ask for a screen share where a staff member at the client drives, and watch for hesitation rather than polish: whether they say "we don't really use that part." A system nobody outside the vendor operates is a prototype with a case study on it.

Ask what you keep the day you stop paying

The day you stop paying an AI consultant, you keep whatever sits in accounts you control and nothing else. Get it in writing before the work starts: which accounts are in your business's name, which documents sit in your storage, who holds the keys and credentials.

The failure is rarely malice: the build lives on the consultant's plan, under the consultant's key, because that was fastest. Six months later it is technically yours and practically theirs. Ask for a list of nouns: "fully transferable" is an adjective. And the rules your business runs on are the part nobody can sell you.

How to verify an AI consultant's business is real in the United States

Verifying a US AI consultant's business is real starts at the state, because US business registration is state by state rather than national: the National Association of Secretaries of State keeps a directory of the fifty state registers, DC and the territories, not one national register. Search the legal entity name rather than the brand: does it exist, is it active, how long has it existed?

Four states, checked 20 August 2026:

Of the four, only Texas charges, and only at the Secretary of State.

Search the assumed name, not the brand. New York indexes assumed name filings, so a firm trading under one name is often a DBA of a differently named LLC, and the name on the contract is the name you can sue. Azgard's New York page asks the same: what exists once they leave.

Illinois, alone of the four, lets you search the register by registered agent, president, secretary or manager, so the name of the person doing your work makes Show-Me List item 3 verifiable in thirty seconds. Neither the UK's Companies House nor Australia's ABN Lookup offers that.

That legal name comes from paperwork you were requesting anyway. A Form W-9 supplies a US payee's correct legal name and taxpayer identification number: type that into the register, not the name on the website. The same request flags a foreign supplier, since a foreign entity furnishes Form W-8BEN-E instead, which is what Azgard does, being Australian.

A SAM.gov registration adds legal name, UEI, CAGE code and status for federal-government sellers, though registrants can opt out, so absence proves nothing.

AI consultant red flags, and the ones that are not red flags

AI consultant red flags worth acting on are the ones that survive a follow-up question: refusing to name the individual who will do the work, offering a demo environment when you asked for a production system, and declining to put exit terms in writing.

Two things get called red flags and are not. No certification: there is no AI consultant license to hold, and New York, for instance, licenses 36 categories of profession, none of which is consulting. And no local office, which changes the schedule, not the work.

US recourse is narrower than it looks, though you are usually inside the door: the Better Business Bureau accepts business-to-business complaints, though it is a private non-profit that cannot compel anyone to pay, and Texas's Deceptive Trade Practices Act counts a business buyer as a consumer below $25 million in assets, in US dollars. Outside the Act is the thing you bought: Texas exempts "the rendering of a professional service, the essence of which is the providing of advice, judgment, opinion," then carves back in "an express misrepresentation of a material fact" and "breach of an express warranty." New York's statutory route pays actual damages or fifty dollars, trebled to a $1,000 ceiling. Texas warns that a complainant may not be contacted by that office again; California's form has you acknowledge the Attorney General cannot act as my personal lawyer. File anyway, then read your contract: every route lands on the same rule, that an express written representation is actionable and an opinion is not.

Illinois and Texas each had a state AI statute take effect on 1 January 2026, and they extend the Show-Me List's fourth question. Illinois made discriminatory AI use in employment a civil rights violation for the employer. Texas's TRAIGA puts its penalties on the deployer, $10,000 to $200,000 a violation, with no private right of action. So ask what you keep and what you are now liable for.

How Azgard answers its own four questions

Azgard answers the Show-Me List in public, and several answers cost something. A client you can call: Apex Signage, Home Grown Electrical and Inner Game Basketball. Three, not thirty, all Australian businesses that agreed to be named, so for a US buyer that call crosses an ocean. A system in production: Apex, where quoting time fell from about three and a half hours to just over two per quote on a system Apex's own staff run, and the measurement page concedes that figure fails two fields of Azgard's own Baseline Card. The person doing your work: always Angus, because Azgard is one engineer, which is a capacity ceiling rather than a feature. What you keep if you stop paying: published in the retainer terms, which say every build is owned and documented so it runs without Azgard.

The US answers are worse, which is the point. Azgard is Sydney-based and delivers remotely: no US entity, no US office, no US staff. Run a state register search on Azgard and every state returns nothing; the W-9 request comes back a W-8BEN-E. The Austin page and the US cost page cover the rest.

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tags: vendor-evaluation ● hiring ● due-diligence ● procurement