When should you hire a production RAG partner?
Hire a production AI partner when RAG or agents must survive security review and real traffic, not a demo. Score vendors on shipped systems, compliance posture, senior delivery, and an evaluation harness you keep.
- Security or risk will block a demo that cannot show audit trails, retention controls, and PII handling
- You need RAG or agents in a regulated SaaS surface within a fixed delivery window
- Your internal team is strong on product, but thin on production AI ops (eval gates, red teaming, cost controls)
- You need a senior-only pod that ships without handholding while your core team stays on the roadmap
Apptension ships senior-only teams with production AI proof: 1.5M+ calls/month, >98% PII detection accuracy, 360+ projects since 2012.

