Seven Questions Every Institution Should Ask an AI Language-Tool Vendor (Including Us)

If you evaluate educational technology for a living, you have sat through the demo where everything works, everything is "fully compliant," and everything your teachers asked about is "on the roadmap — shipping soon."

We sell an AI speaking tutor to institutions, so we are not a neutral party. But we believe the fastest way to earn trust in this category is to hand evaluators the interrogation script — and commit to answering it ourselves, in writing, including the uncomfortable parts. Here it is.

1. Where is student speech processed, and under whose terms?

Voice is the product in language learning, so this is the first question, not the tenth. Demand three specifics: which AI provider processes the audio, under which of that provider's API surfaces and terms (consumer and enterprise terms differ enormously — including on age restrictions and data use), and in which region the processing happens.

A vendor who answers "it's all GDPR compliant" without naming the provider and the terms hasn't answered.

Our answer today: speech is processed in real time by Google's Gemini service; we name this plainly in our privacy policy. EU-resident processing via Google Cloud's enterprise infrastructure is a dated item on our roadmap — it is a precondition we set ourselves before serving cohorts that include minors, and we'll put that milestone in the agreement.

2. What is stored, for how long, and can we turn it off?

Real-time processing and storage are different things. Ask what persists after the conversation ends: recordings? transcripts? error logs? For how long, deletable by whom, and — the question that separates real data controls from brochure claims — can retention features be disabled for our organisation specifically?

Our answer today: short correction replays are retained 30 days and are deletable; account deletion purges the learner's data including stored audio; and for institutional pilots we disable replay storage entirely at the organisation level. Error logs (text, not audio) power each learner's drills.

3. Which of the features you just showed us exist today?

The single highest-yield question in edtech procurement. Ask the vendor to sort everything discussed into three columns: available today, committed for our deployment with a date, and roadmap. Then ask them to sign the middle column.

A vendor who resists the exercise is telling you which column their demo lives in.

Our answer: we volunteer this table before being asked — our institutional one-pager is built as those three columns. For example: the live voice tutor, mistake ledger, and rubric-graded assessments are in production today; class codes and fortnightly teacher reports are pilot commitments; the live teacher dashboard and EU-resident processing are dated roadmap. We'd rather lose a deal on honesty than win it on futures.

4. What does it cost when students actually use it?

AI inference costs real money per minute, which means uncapped "unlimited" offers hide one of two things: an assumption your students won't use the product, or a future renegotiation. Ask: is there a hard usage cap, who enforces it, and is the contract price fixed against it? Then ask what happens the day a whole class hits the ceiling at once.

Our answer: every learner has a hard daily speaking cap enforced server-side; institutional prices are fixed against those caps; there is no overage billing. Caps are sized so daily practice fits comfortably — and if a cohort consistently hits them, that's a renewal conversation, not an invoice surprise.

5. What evidence of learning will we receive — and could it survive an audit?

"Engagement" is not evidence. Minutes-used dashboards tell you the tool was open, not that anyone can speak better. Ask for the measurement design: baseline placement, progress measures tied to errors actually corrected, and a pre/post assessment graded against a rubric someone can inspect — ideally CEFR-mapped.

Our answer: placement test at the start; per-student correction-to-mastery tracking (an error counts as learned only when the student passes a spaced re-test on it later); rubric-graded speaking assessments pre and post; all of it summarised in reports your teachers receive fortnightly and your institution receives at term end.

6. What happens to our teachers?

Ask the vendor to describe the teacher's role in their ideal deployment. Listen for whether teachers are users of the system or an obstacle to it. Tools positioned to replace conversation practice, grading, or the teaching relationship itself tend to fail in institutions for reasons that have nothing to do with technology — and they deserve to.

Our answer: we are the practice room between classes. Teachers assign scenarios, receive the reports, and keep every judgement call. Nothing in our product grades a student for certification, and nothing in our sales material will ever price itself against a teacher's hour.

7. If you disappear, what do we keep?

Small vendors build most of the interesting things in this category — we're one of them, so we'll say it plainly: ask about the exit. Data export formats, deletion guarantees on termination, and what happens to the current school year if the company fails or is acquired.

Our answer: your data exports as CSV/PDF on request and at termination; deletion on termination is contractual; pilots are priced and scoped so that walking away at the mid-point review is genuinely easy. We'd rather you continue because the evidence says so.

Print this, use it on everyone

These seven questions take twenty minutes of a vendor meeting and will tell you more than any demo. Use them on every vendor in your review — including us.

Going deeper: The speaking-hours gap: why university language centres can't staff their way to fluency · LinguaLive for schools, universities & academies