A demo is impressive. How do you know the AI is ready?
A convincing demonstration does not show behaviour with incomplete requests, conflicting documents or actions the assistant should not perform. Before making it available, define a limited task and a repeatable way to check usefulness, errors and handover to the team.
Choose a task with clear boundaries
Finding an internal policy differs from approving an expense. Write down what the assistant can answer, which sources it uses and which decisions remain with people. Start with a task whose outcome is easy to assess. If the objective is simply to sound intelligent in open conversation, deciding what counts as success or when to intervene becomes difficult.
Prepare examples before tuning
Collect representative questions without unnecessary personal information and describe what a good answer must contain. Include frequent questions and less comfortable situations. Reserve some examples for evaluating later changes without using them to guide every adjustment. This prevents improvements from being limited to presentation questions.
- A question explicitly answered in a current source.
- A question without sufficient available information.
- Two sources with different versions or dates.
- An out-of-scope request or one requiring approval.
- A request that should be handed to a person.
Evaluate more than the final wording
Record retrieved sources, the answer, response time and expected outcome. If the assistant performs actions, also check permissions, arguments and effects in the destination system. A polite answer can conceal an incorrect action. Set simple criteria such as supporting claims with sources, recognising missing information and preserving intent when handing over.
Launch with monitoring and a way to stop
Begin with limited users and tasks. Decide who reviews issues and can suspend an integration. Repeat important examples when documents, models or instructions change. Group failures to determine whether content, retrieval, instructions or the interface needs attention. Evaluation is part of operations; it does not end when the chatbot becomes visible.
Frequently asked questions
Is a referenced answer always correct?
No. A reference may be irrelevant, outdated or fail to support the conclusion. Compare the claim with the cited content during evaluation.
Can every error be eliminated?
That should not be promised. You can constrain scope, measure failures, improve the system and define when human validation is needed.
A note from ArqWeb
This guide organises checks and decisions for a common situation. Implementation depends on the website, access and systems involved. We can assess your situation if you need help applying these steps.
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