What would a buyer of your business find behind the AI slide?
Matías Bonvin· Updated
Open the slide in your company presentation that mentions AI. Choose one sentence claiming a business benefit. Then find the records another person would need to check it.
If that requires a call to the person who built the system, you have your first piece of preparation for a sale.
An owner can explain why a project matters. A buyer still needs to establish what works, what it costs and what will survive the change of ownership. That evidence also helps prepare the next investment decision.
Keep the claim small enough to verify
Suppose a distributor uses AI to prepare order entries from customer emails. The sales presentation says the company has automated order processing.
That sentence leaves plenty to discover. Perhaps only repeat orders are eligible. Perhaps a person approves every entry. The warehouse may still receive a separate spreadsheet, and customer-specific references may need manual correction.
Describe the implemented boundary: which orders enter the workflow, what the system prepares, who checks them and what happens after approval. Keep cases outside that boundary in the record. Otherwise, excluding the difficult orders can make the results look better while the same team still handles them elsewhere.
A precise claim lets the buyer inspect the useful work without having to correct your presentation first.
Build a six-document evidence file
For one workflow, start with the following documents. Give each an owner, a period covered and a link to the underlying records.
| Document | What someone else should be able to check |
|---|---|
| Process boundary and baseline | The work measured before the change, the eligible cases and how the measurements were collected. |
| Production results | Completed cases, exceptions and corrections over a stated period, with a comparable baseline or an explanation of differences. |
| Running-cost sheet | Model and software charges, hosting, support, human review and the work needed to keep the system current. Separate setup costs. |
| Commercial evidence | Orders or contracts supporting any revenue claim, including whether that revenue is new or already existed. |
| Test record | Representative inputs, expected outcomes, observed results and known failures that someone authorised can reproduce. |
| Transfer pack | Accounts, rights, operating instructions and the result of a handover rehearsal with another operator. |
Add one column to your index: who can verify this without the project team's help? The file should not depend on private explanations.
Protect confidential material through appropriate access controls. A buyer's request for evidence does not require unrestricted access to production or to personal data.
Saved time needs a destination
In the order-entry example, less typing may free capacity. That does not automatically reduce payroll, increase sales or improve margin.
Record what happened to the time. Did the team process more orders with the same staffing? Did overtime fall? Did people spend the released capacity on unresolved cases? Each outcome has different evidence and a different financial interpretation.
If you estimate a benefit, show the assumptions and label it as an estimate. Keep it separate from an observed result. Include review and correction time before claiming a net saving.
The same discipline applies to revenue. Adding AI to an existing service does not make the service's entire revenue incremental. Trace any claimed change to the commercial records and acknowledge other factors that could explain it.
Let someone challenge the file before a buyer does
Ask a finance colleague or an authorised adviser who did not build the workflow to follow one claim back to its records. Note where they need an explanation, which periods do not match and which calculation they cannot reproduce.
Fix the gaps while the people and evidence are available. Adjust the presentation to what the records support.
None of this determines an acquisition multiple. It gives a buyer fewer unsupported assumptions to sort through and gives you a clearer account of what the company has built.
Solve IT can start with one operating workflow and help define what to implement and how to check its effect. Bring the current process and the records behind the benefit you want to establish.
Start with the sentence on your AI slide that would be hardest to prove.