How to Choose an AI Developer
Updated September 14, 2026 · AI-assisted guide. Sources and illustrative examples are identified below.
Choose an AI developer who can explain your workflow, demonstrate the relevant capability, and define how the finished system will be tested and maintained. Compare evidence and scope. A polished chatbot demo or an impressive percentage is not enough to establish fit.
Prepare a useful project brief
Describe the task as it works today. Include a representative input, the output your team needs, the systems involved, and the person who will review the result. Add examples of mistakes that would make the system unusable.
For a small business, a concise brief might say: “We receive product inquiries through WordPress, staff gather details from approved records, and a salesperson prepares a reply. We want a draft with the right product information and source links, with staff approval before sending.”
This is an illustrative brief, not a description of a completed client system. It gives a provider something concrete to discuss: source quality, product matching, review, and delivery.
Ask for relevant evidence
Request a demonstration of the capability your project requires. If you need a product-data workflow, a general conversational demo leaves important questions unanswered. Ask how the provider handled missing information, inconsistent records, and failed connections in comparable work.
For claimed results, ask what was measured, over what period, against which baseline, and with what limitations. Distinguish client work, internal demonstrations, and hypothetical examples. Confidentiality may limit what a provider can share, but it does not make an unsupported number useful evidence.
Evaluate the whole system
| Area | Question | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Workflow understanding | What happens before and after the AI step? | A plain-language process and exception list |
| Information quality | Which source controls each important answer? | A sample answer with supporting material |
| Integrations | Which exact actions can the connected system perform? | A demonstration using representative records |
| Permissions | Who can view information or trigger an action? | An explanation of enforced access rules |
| Failure handling | What happens when a connection or answer fails? | A failure demonstration and recovery procedure |
| Handoff | Can our team maintain and operate this? | Documentation, account access, and a support plan |
Agree on acceptance tests before the build
An acceptance test describes an observable result. “The assistant is accurate” is too vague. A more useful test provides a question, the approved source, required details, and what the assistant should do if the source is missing.
For a connected action, inspect the resulting record. A reply saying that a task completed is not evidence that the business system accepted it. Include duplicate requests, interrupted connections, incorrect permissions, and changes to source information in the evaluation.
Ask how tests will be repeated after model, plugin, or integration updates. A test set should help the owner notice regressions, rather than exist only for launch approval.
Understand account and data ownership
Clarify who controls the website, model provider account, integrations, code, source documents, and exports. Identify the access a developer needs and how that access will be managed after the project. Keep billing and recovery details understandable to the business owner.
For WordPress development, the official security guidance covers practices such as checking capabilities and handling input and output appropriately. Ask the provider to explain which protections matter for your particular feature. A prompt alone does not enforce access to private records.
Make the proposal comparable
Request a written scope with deliverables, exclusions, assumptions, dependencies, review points, and ongoing charges. Identify what your team must supply, including access and source cleanup. Ask what happens when a requirement changes or a third-party service behaves differently from the initial demonstration.
Discuss the smallest useful release. A provider should be able to explain what can be completed within that release and what remains a separate phase. Avoid a first phase that produces a demonstration without a path to operating the promised workflow.
Look for practical communication
A useful developer can explain tradeoffs without requiring you to learn every model and framework name. They should be comfortable saying that a source is missing, a feature needs testing, or a simpler form may solve the problem.
Ask who you will work with, how questions are resolved, and how progress is demonstrated. If your team is in Sheboygan and the developer works elsewhere, agree on availability and the format of reviews; location alone does not determine project quality.
What should happen after launch?
Establish an owner for source updates, usage review, failed workflows, and support requests. Define how changes are released and how the business can return to a manual process when necessary. Ongoing ownership should be part of the selection decision.
AI Curdy is a DOYJO project and connects readers to DOYJO’s AI and WordPress development services. Use the same questions in this guide when evaluating DOYJO or any other provider.
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Have a question or an example to suggest? Contact AI Curdy, or share this guide with the person planning your project.