AI buyer's guides
Guides for the decision before the build
Five guides for the work that happens before a contract or a commit: evaluating a partner, comparing a tool, and deciding what to build in-house. Each one is written from the position of a company that runs its own AI products in production rather than advising on them from a distance.
Choosing a partner
Three guides for the evaluation that happens before a contract: what to ask, what to verify, and what the failure modes look like when a firm cannot deliver.
How to Choose an AI Consulting Partner
What to check before hiring a firm for strategy, architecture, or governance, and how to tell genuine AI infrastructure from a rebrand.
How to Choose an AI Development Partner
How to separate a build partner from a staff-augmentation shop, compare engagement models, and judge what happens after delivery.
How to Choose a Generative AI Partner
How to verify LLM, retrieval, and agent depth against production claims, and how to read reviews that were written by the firm.
Choosing a tool or an approach
Two guides for the decision after that: which tool to buy, and which parts of the stack are worth building in-house.
How to Choose a Code Review Tool
How to compare review tools on coverage, automation depth, integration, and pricing, and how to test one against your own repository.
Build vs Buy Agentic AI
How to decide what to build in-house and what to buy, with the real first-year costs, the framework tradeoffs, and the governance you cannot skip.
Questions about the guides
How the cluster is written, how current it is, and where to start.
Which guide should I start with?
It depends on the decision in front of you. Choosing who to work with is the consulting, development, and generative AI guides. Choosing a tool is how to choose a code review tool. Deciding what to build in-house is build vs buy.
Are these guides independent?
No, and each one says so. They are written by FLYTEBIT, which sells the services they describe. The frameworks are the ones we use with clients, and the vendor-evaluation questions are written so you can put them to us as easily as to anyone else on your shortlist.
How current are the guides?
Each carries a last-updated date, and all five were revised in September 2026. We revisit them when the underlying facts move, which for these topics means pricing, regulation, and the platforms a buyer is choosing between.
Do the guides cover pricing?
They cover the shapes rather than a rate card: staff augmentation, fixed-scope projects, product-first consulting, and full transformation, with what each one shifts onto you. Our own figures are published too, starting with a feasibility study from $2K, a 2 to 4 week timeline, and 4 to 6 hours of your team's time.
Can we use the frameworks with a different vendor?
Yes. They are evaluation frameworks rather than product pitches, and they work on any shortlist. The comparison tables and red-flag lists are the parts clients use most, including when the shortlist does not include us.
What if none of the guides fits?
Book a and we will look at the decision you are actually facing rather than the one the guides cover. If it falls outside what we do, we will say so rather than stretching a scope to fit.
Not sure which decision you are facing?
Most engagements start with a feasibility study: we examine the workflow, the constraints, the data, and the failure modes, then give you a Go or No-Go verdict. Starting from $2K, with a 2 to 4 week timeline and 4 to 6 hours of your team's time.