Three Questions for Every AI Purchase

Federal grants judged every purchase against three words: reasonable, allocable, allowable. Would a prudent person pay this price? Does the cost connect to the work? Do the rules permit it? Three questions, and they caught almost every bad purchase before it happened.

Run your AI purchases through the same three.

Reasonable. Would a careful business owner pay this price for what you actually get? Not the demo's promise — the real thing, for your real use case.

Allocable. Which problem does this solve, specifically? "AI" is not a business purpose. "Cutting our intake form processing time in half" is.

Allowable. Does anything — regulation, contract, or your own policy — say you can't use AI for this? If you're in a regulated corner, check before you buy, not after.

I watched these three questions stop bad grant spending for years. They work because they're simple enough to ask in a meeting and strict enough to matter.

Three questions. Ask them before you sign anything.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.