AI Services for Business: What Good Looks Like and How Pricing Works

The market for AI services has exploded. Strategy consultancies, system integrators, platform companies and individual freelancers all sell "AI". For a buyer, it is nearly impossible to tell genuine capability from a consulting-heavy workforce with a good deck.

Four types of AI services

Not all "AI services" are built the same way. Before writing an RFP, be clear about which type you are buying.

What to demand from a good vendor

Vendor quality shows up in four concrete places. Demand these in the RFP, not in contract negotiation.

How pricing is structured

Understanding pricing is directly proportional to buyer value. Prices vary by an order of magnitude depending on structure.

Five questions that reveal vendor maturity

These questions are valuable at the RFP stage because shallow vendors answer vaguely.

How AI-Koutsi differs from a traditional vendor

AI-Koutsi is a platform, not a consulting project. One monthly fee (from €990 / month) includes the maturity assessment, prioritised use-case library, governance documentation and architectural roadmap — pre-modelled for 12 industries. In practice, at the end of the first month you hold the same deliverables a traditional consulting project would bill at €80k–€150k. The difference is not "cheaper work" — it comes from the methodology being productised: industry-grounded use-case libraries, semantic layer and governance patterns don't get rebuilt for every client.