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Four Criteria Every AI Vendor Should Meet
A practical framework built for distributors: the questions to ask, what to look for, and how to separate vendors who demo well from vendors who deliver.
Maturity and Scale
Experience compounds. AI vendors who have deployed across more customers have encountered more real-world complexity and built solutions for it. More customers means more feedback, faster iteration, and a product stress-tested beyond a controlled environment. Before you commit, ask for evidence of production workloads at scale, not just pilots.
Expert Execution
Building AI that consistently works is a world-class technical challenge that requires serious engineering talent. Without engineering depth and dedicated customer support, quality erodes and going live becomes harder than it needs to be. Adoption stalls and ROI is never realized. When you evaluate a vendor's team, look past the pitch and check the people.
Enterprise-Grade Security and Privacy
When you give a vendor access to your ERP, security and privacy are both critical. Security protects your data from unauthorized access, while privacy governs how it's used and shared. A vendor's word is not enough. Look for independent verification and specific controls, not general assurances.
Clear ROI and Success Stories
Unfortunately, demos can't be trusted. It's too easy to set up a demo to show only the cases where a tool works well. The best evidence is what you hear directly from other distributors. Or if you can test a solution live yourself, that's an even stronger sign. Before you commit, look for evidence that the product actually works.
The Proven Results Behind the Framework
100+
5M+
50+
What Distributors Say
It was head-and-shoulders above the competition that we evaluated.
The Kendall Group
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If we ever told the team we were taking Canals away, I think we'd have mutiny on our hands. It has very quickly become a need-to-have tool in their tool belt — and not a lot of technology has that kind of impact.
Honestly, it's one of the smoothest transitions I've ever been part of.
On a scale of 1 to 10, our satisfaction with Canals is a 12.
Canals turns one sales rep into many.
Gamechanger was the response I received from multiple associates when we launched.
Right now, 57% of Canals transactions turn into orders, when our average is closer to 20%. Customer satisfaction goes up because you can get to quotes you wouldn’t otherwise, and sales will grow because customers realize that when they come to you, you’re more responsive because you have a tool like Canals. You’ll see not only top-line growth, but also bottom-line growth because of the efficiencies it creates.
They're real experts in Eclipse and it makes a difference. For example, we just fed a 1,000 line cut order all with parallel data into Eclipse. Saved our salesman about 2 days of work.
Not only are we making the experience better for our users, but we have better relationships with our customers. We're able to increase customer service, and we're able to increase our vendor service.
We're used to software vendors over-promising and under-delivering. With Canals, it worked much better than expected. The few issues we had were addressed immediately. Adoption by our users has also amazed us. We hope you continue to amaze us with your dedication to being the most responsive vendor we’ve ever worked with.
One of our automation guys had sent over a project with 100+ line items in a spreadsheet. I ran it through Canals and had it back in 20 minutes. He called me and said, ‘How is that even possible?’ That would’ve taken a CSR group all day before.
The product and team have delivered on everything they've said, and it just keeps getting better. Whenever we've requested any kind of customization, they've listened carefully to our needs and implemented solutions in days. You guys make stuff happen.
There was a time when we had a backlog of quotes that was a week out. Canals gives us the bandwidth to handle that kind of surge without burning out the team.
The integration was done in just a few days, and our sales team started seeing the impact immediately. Instant gratification. The speed and quality they've brought to addressing our specific needs are like nothing else I've experienced in distribution software.
The longer they're in it, the more they love it. If we ever told the team we were taking Canals away, I think we'd have mutiny on our hands. It has very quickly become a need-to-have tool in their tool belt—and not a lot of technology has that kind of impact.
It has not only substantially reduced the time for entry but also improved accuracy, especially on large orders that would take hours to enter line by line. The time savings we’ve gained have allowed our team to focus on other initiatives that enhance the customer experience. Implementation was fast and easy, and the Canals team is very responsive.
Implementation was quick and painless, and benefits were recognized immediately. The team at Canals has been wonderful to work with and responsive.
As early adopters of artificial intelligence, we've seen our quoting get faster and smarter than ever, and it's definitely boosting sales. The technology is also a training and retention tool. I've had one of our guys say to me "I wouldn't work anywhere without this."
Tasks that previously took hours of inside sales time now take minutes. We tried another solution and just couldn’t make it work. Canals’ AI application is the future of order entry. It's had a significantly positive impact on our business, and the more we use it the better it gets.
It was very fast to get up and running, both technically and in terms of usage. Our team has all kinds of different backgrounds and technical abilities, and they were able to pick it up easily. We had evaluated some other options, and Canals was the most intuitive. The Canals team has been extremely responsive and willing to accommodate our requests.
Our order entry process used to be very inefficient. Since implementing Canals, it's like night and day! We've seen a dramatic reduction in processing times, freeing up our team to focus on strategic tasks. Canals' training and customer service have also been top notch. Overall Canals has improved our efficiency immensely, I highly recommend it for any business looking to streamline order entry and boost productivity.
We’ve worked through other implementations before, and none have come close to this level of responsiveness, clarity, and consistent follow-through. The open communication and regular updates made the entire process smooth and confidence-building.You are truly an outstanding team.
Literally for a specific customer, you use Canals once or twice and it starts to learn who is asking for the product. Now there's a lot of things I don't even have to fill out anymore because it automatically knows what to do. It's helping Kendall, the owner associates, do their job and in a more timely fashion. It really will help you be more proactive for your customers.
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