In 2025 AI-washing stopped being a marketing sin and became an enforcement target. The buyers who adjusted their diligence are deducting for it. The ones who didn't are discovering it after close.
Counsel now explicitly advise buyers to "retain outside experts to conduct diligence into AI claims" (DLA Piper; Weil). If the target you acquire turns out to have been AI-washing, its exposure becomes your exposure.
Full technical audits run $50k–250k+ per engagement and take weeks. That fits a nine-figure deal and rules out the $2–7M acquisitions where searchers and PE bolt-ons live. Free point tools scan one dimension and write no memo. Between them sits nothing that answers the AI question, measures key-person risk and delivers a cited memo at LOI stage for a fixed fee.
Assay is built for that gap. 45% of dealmakers call technical review the most expensive and onerous part of diligence, and small-deal budgets run $25–75k in total. A $15k screen fits inside that budget and tells you whether the $100k audit is warranted at all.
Every incumbent alternative is a SaaS upload or a consultancy that wants the code shipped to it. Sellers stall on that, because source code is the crown jewels. Assay installs nothing and phones nowhere, so it runs on the seller's own machine while they watch, and their consent stops holding up your timeline.
The screen checks the AI claims and the key people on the seller's machine, in days, before you spend $100k on a full audit. It clears your deal or sends it to the expensive humans.
Tell us about the deal and when your LOI expires. If a screen isn't the right instrument, we'll say so.
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