A good questionnaire for AI vendors adds a short AI section to your standard security review: how customer data is used and retained, which model providers are involved, what agents can do, how the system is tested, how incidents are reported and how you exit. Keep it short enough that people answer honestly.
Keep the standard questions
Do not replace your normal review. Access control, encryption, logging, vulnerability management and business continuity still apply. The AI section is added on top. Resist pasting two hundred new questions. Long questionnaires get copy-pasted answers, which tell you nothing.
The AI addendum
Data: is customer data used to train or tune models, by the vendor or by a model provider, and how is that controlled? Retention: how long are prompts, outputs and logs kept? Providers: which third party models or services are used, and where is data processed? Agents: what actions can the system take on its own, what approvals exist, and can customers restrict them? Testing: how is the system tested for prompt injection and misuse, and how often? Mapping: does the vendor align to any recognized framework, and what evidence supports that? OWASP's list of LLM risks gives a useful vocabulary for the testing question.
Evidence over assertions
Ask for something you can check: a recent summary of testing, a sample audit log record, a diagram of data flow, the subprocessor list. Where a vendor refers to an independent report, read the scope and dates rather than the logo. Never accept a claim of certification without checking who issued what, and for what period.
Scoring and follow up
Mark answers as satisfactory, needs clarification or unacceptable, and write down the reason. Hold a short call for the unclear ones. Keep the completed questionnaire with the contract file. At renewal, ask what has changed, because AI products change fast and last year's answers may no longer be true.
A final point: be ready to answer your own questionnaire. Vendors will turn the questions around, and customers will send you similar ones. Drafting honest answers for your own AI features is a fast way to learn what your questionnaire should ask. Keep one maintained source of answers, review it when features change, and mark what is planned versus what is live so that no answer promises more than the product does today.
Where Safeguard fits
Safeguard offers compliance and evidence automation that can help organize the records you keep for your own vendor reviews and customer questionnaires.
Quick check
How long should the AI section be?
Ten to fifteen well chosen questions is usually enough, with evidence requests for the most important ones.
Sources
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
