What will my customer's CFO ask before my AI pilot converts to production?
They will ask what changed against a baseline measured before the pilot, in their own numbers, and who on their side agrees. Then they will ask what production costs, how long payback takes, and what it costs them to wait.
For 83% of enterprises, fewer than half of their AI pilots reach production (Madrona, Aug 2026). If you're late in a one-year pilot and the renewal just stalled on "show us the ROI," it's a lonely spot: you can see the value, and the people deciding can't yet. The product may be fine. Our read: what's often missing is a baseline nobody asked you to record, and a relationship with the people in finance and procurement who now decide.
What they'll look for
- The four sign-offs: the business owner, finance, IT or security, and procurement. Meet the ones you don't know yet through your champion, before renewal, not at it. For your next pilot, have that conversation before day one.
- Three questions that go to their risk: can they reproduce the result without you, what happens to their data and workflows if they stop, and which customers like them went to production. Each is a fair worry. Treat it as something to build the pilot around, not something to argue down. A young company with few customers answers the last one with its method and its pilot's own numbers, not with logos. And if their numbers show the pilot didn't move what it was meant to, it's better to hear that now, while you can still change the pilot, than at renewal.
- The worksheet, filled in. Their finance team will build something like it anyway. Better that your numbers are already in it and their owners have seen them.
Your product logs and your CRM hold the records of the pilot. The review turns on the reasons: what changed in their numbers, and why it matters to each person who signs.
Your next step: ask your champion for a short meeting with the finance person who will review the pilot, and ask them which two or three measures they'll judge it on. Bring the worksheet with what you can already show from their systems. If there's no baseline, say so and offer to rebuild one from their systems.
From Andru Buyer Intelligence. Platforms give your team the buyer's records; Andru helps you understand the reasons.