Critical fields complete, recent, standardised, and credible for the median customer. Aggregate numbers can look healthy while the middle 60% of accounts have thin coverage.

Volume is relative to approach: zero-shot, RAG, classifier, and recommender each need a different data profile. Measure history, cold-start duration, and bootstrap plan.

The team can explain what data flows where, under what terms. DPAs, residency constraints, enterprise procurement rules, and provider retention policies are confirmed.

Task-specific evals are defined. Edge cases are captured. Failures are loggable and reviewable. Users have correction paths. Clicks and impressions are not substitutes for output quality.