Choosing a provider

Choosing an AI agency: how to read the market

The phrase AI agency covers five different trades that do not solve the same problems. This page helps you work out which one you need before requesting three quotes that will not be comparable.

What we are talking about

An AI agency designs and ships systems built on language models: business agents, workflow automation, document search over internal data, platforms that embed those parts. The visible work looks like ordinary software development. What differs sits elsewhere, in the fact that a model produces a probabilistic output, so you have to build around it the means to measure, correct and stop it.

The French market is young and the vocabulary is loose. The same phrase covers a lone consultant, a team of ten, an IT services firm that opened an AI practice six months ago, or a vendor selling its platform with a little integration. The five categories below are not equivalent depending on what you need, and the first mistake is putting them in the same tender.

Kinds of provider

  • Freelance or lone consultant

    Good for
    One precise, scoped use case on a stack they know. Maximum responsiveness and the lowest entry cost on the market.
    Where it breaks down
    Continuity. Sick leave or a better-paid engagement elsewhere leaves a production system with nobody who knows it.
    Billing
    Daily rate, usually time and materials.

  • Specialist AI agency

    Good for
    Taking a business friction to a running system, with its guardrails and documentation. Small enough that whoever scoped it also delivers it.
    Where it breaks down
    Very large volumes and thirty-person projects. Capacity caps out fast, and an honest agency says so before signing.
    Billing
    Fixed price per project, with a separate monthly running cost.

  • Generalist IT services firm

    Good for
    Volume, regulated environments, integration into a complex information system, and multi-year service commitments.
    Where it breaks down
    Speed and genuine AI seniority. The practice is often under two years old, and the team that sells is not the team that codes.
    Billing
    Time and materials at a daily rate, with a margin on each placed profile.

  • Platform vendor

    Good for
    Starting fast on a standard need, with a finished interface and support. Nothing to maintain on your side.
    Where it breaks down
    Anything outside the intended case. And per-user cost becomes the main line once the rollout widens.
    Billing
    Per-user or per-volume subscription, plus an integration engagement.

  • Strategy consultancy

    Good for
    Framing a project portfolio, arbitrating between business units, preparing a committee decision.
    Where it breaks down
    Delivering. The output is a document, and you then have to find who builds, which adds months.
    Billing
    Engagement fee, often monthly.

What actually decides

  1. 01

    Who codes, exactly

    Ask for the names and background of the people who will be at the keyboard, not the size of the company. A gap between the pre-sales team and the delivery team is the first predictor of a project going sideways.

  2. 02

    What happens when the model is wrong

    A serious provider answers with a table: what goes out automatically, what needs human confirmation, what is forbidden. If the answer is that the model does not get things wrong, the conversation can stop there.

  3. 03

    The running cost

    An AI quote reads on two lines that must never be merged: what you pay once and what comes back monthly. The forgotten line is almost always human review time, which often weighs more than tokens.

  4. 04

    What you get at the end

    Code, prompts, evaluation set and documentation, in your repository. If the intellectual property or the hosting stay with the provider, you are buying a dependency rather than an asset.

  5. 05

    Evidence with numbers

    Ask for a case where the figures were measured afterwards, not estimated beforehand. And ask how they were measured. An agency that separates its measured cases from its modelled ones will also tell you the truth about your project.

Warning signs

  • A quote that does not separate setup from monthly cost
  • A three-year return promised with no intermediate checkpoint
  • No mention of what happens when an answer goes wrong
  • Client references with no verifiable or dated figures
  • The same technical answer whatever the problem posed
  • A refusal to name the people who will deliver

Where we sit

kengdev sits in the second category, a specialist agency, as a small team based in Bordeaux, France. In practice, whoever scopes is whoever delivers, code and prompts land in your repository, and every case published on this site states whether its figures are measured or modelled.

The entry format is a €1,500 audit producing a friction map and a 90-day roadmap. It serves as well to decide to do nothing as to launch a project, and it is the best possible use of €1,500 when nobody on the team can say which process to tackle first.

When we are not the right choice

  • If you need thirty people over twelve months, take an IT services firm. A small team's capacity caps out, and pretending otherwise would be paid for during your project.
  • If your need is standard and already covered by a market product, buy the product. Having custom work built for what exists on subscription costs more and ages worse.
  • If the expected outcome is an arbitration document for a committee, with no intention to build within the year, a strategy consultancy fits better.
  • If you are after the lowest price and nothing else, a freelance will be cheaper. The calculation only changes if system continuity matters to you.

Our ranges

  • Audit and roadmapfrom €1,500Fixed price. Workshops, friction map, 90-day roadmap, delivered in 1 to 3 weeks.
  • Team workshopfrom €900Half day or full day, on your tools and your real cases, 4 to 12 people.
  • Agent or automationfrom €4,000Project, typically 2 to 6 weeks. Monthly running cost costed separately.

Excl. VAT, France. Monthly running cost is always costed separately from the build.

Frequently asked

What is an AI agency?
An AI agency designs and ships systems built on language models: business agents, workflow automation, search over internal data. In practice the term covers five very different kinds of provider, from freelance to large IT services firm, which do not solve the same problems.
What does an AI agent cost?
At kengdev a business agent starts at €4,000 to build, with a monthly running cost costed separately. On the market, the gap between two quotes almost always comes from scope and from whether running cost is included, not from technical level.
How do you compare three AI agency quotes?
Bring them onto one grid: setup on one side, monthly cost on the other, human supervision time inside the second. Add what you keep at the end, code and prompts in your repository or not. The three quotes become comparable, and the apparent gap often halves.
Do you need an audit before starting?
Not always. If a friction is already identified, measured and owned by someone on the team, go straight to project scoping. An audit is for when several ideas are circulating and none is costed, which is the most common situation.
Is a local agency worth it?
For workshops and scoping, yes: half a day on site with the people living the friction beats several video calls. For build and follow-up, location changes nothing. kengdev is in Bordeaux and works across France.

Going further

Scope your first AI agent

20 minutes to review your tools, data and the first useful case. No jargon, no commitment.

Get startedSee AI audit