Enterprise AI initiatives fail in predictable ways: open-ended proofs of concept that never end, demos on toy data, and security teams brought in last. A pilot that converts is engineered backwards from the question executives actually ask: "can we defend this in production?" Here is the 90-day structure Locs uses.
The three properties of a pilot that converts
- Fixed price and scope — a pilot with an open budget is a science project; procurement can't approve it and vendors can't be held to it.
- Your data, your premises — a demo on sample data proves nothing about your environment, your sensitivity rules, or your teams.
- Evidence as the deliverable — the pilot should end with artifacts your security and audit functions keep, not a slide deck.
The five phases
| Days | Phase | Exit criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 1–15 | Deployment | Appliance installed on your infrastructure; roles configured; kill-switch drill on the record |
| 16–35 | Knowledge ingestion | Your SOPs, tickets, and reports classified, redacted, and approved into team-scoped knowledge spaces — including one deliberate secret-block demonstration |
| 36–55 | Copilot activation | Real users asking real questions; citations, confidence scoring, and refusal behaviour validated |
| 56–75 | Controlled updates | Knowledge gaps closed via signed offline bundles; a live rollback with impact analysis |
| 76–90 | Evidence & decision | Signed evidence pack verified offline in front of your security team; rollout roadmap and pricing on the table |
Metrics that matter
Track two families. Governance metrics: documents classified, secrets blocked, redactions performed, approvals completed, audit events recorded, rollbacks demonstrated. Quality metrics: answer confidence trend, refusal rate on high-risk topics, knowledge gaps detected versus closed, and source coverage per answer. The first family convinces your CISO; the second convinces your operations leadership.
Day 90 is a decision, not a demo
The final readout should put three documents on the table: the security evidence pack (verifiable without trusting the vendor), the knowledge-quality report, and a priced rollout plan. If the pilot fee credits fully against installation — as it does with Locs — the conversion decision becomes a continuation, not a new procurement.
The Locs 90-day pilot is fixed-price, fixed-scope, and ends with audit-ready evidence — 100% of the fee credits against installation.
EXPLORE THE 90-DAY PILOT