What Happens to Your Data When You Cancel the Tool?

Quick question: when you cancel an AI tool, what happens to your data?

Most teams never ask. They assume ending the contract ends the story. It usually doesn't. Your data may sit on the vendor's servers for months. It may live on in backups. It may have already been used in ways you can't undo.

Ask these questions before you sign, not after you leave. How do we get our data back? In what format, and how quickly? When do you delete it, and how do you prove it? What happens to data in your backups?

Get the answers in the contract, in plain language.

The easiest time to negotiate your exit is before you've entered. The hardest time is when you're already trying to leave.

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