Your shortlist, with the evidence attached.
Vendors describe the deployments they run inside other organizations. The Index records which of those descriptions the organization itself has confirmed, at what stage the deployment is running, and the date anyone last checked.
Most claims never leave Level 1
Of the claims captured from vendor material, fewer than one in six has been taken to the organization named in it.
Index edition 2026.4 · compiled 18 Oct 2026
The reference call is the weakest step in the process
By the time a vendor reaches your shortlist, every proof point you have seen was chosen, written or approved by the party selling to you.
References are selected
The vendor decides who you speak to. You hear from the deployment that went well, and from the sponsor who staked something on it going well.
Case studies are written by the seller
A published case study is a marketing asset both sides signed off. It records an intention as often as it records an outcome, and it is almost never revisited.
Nobody goes back
A logo placed on a website in 2024 stays there whether or not the deployment survived 2025. Nothing on a vendor site carries a date, because nothing on it has to.
One page per vendor, one entry per claim, each with its own evidence
A record is not a profile and not a review. It is a ledger of the customer claims a vendor has published about itself, with what each one was taken through.
- The claim, word for word Held exactly as the vendor published it, with the page it stood on and the day it was taken. We do not paraphrase a claim into something easier to defend.
- The organization, described but never named Sector, region, size band and the function the deployment sits in. Enterprises answer honestly because the answer is not a press release.
- The level it reached Claimed, contract verified, or enterprise verified. A level is earned at a layer of evidence. It is never assigned by us and never bought.
- The deployment stage Yet to start, partial deployment, or full deployment, as stated by the organization running it rather than by the vendor selling it.
- The currency of the determination What was established stays on the record permanently. How recently anyone checked runs out after twelve months and then reads unconfirmed.
- The log Every step, dated: when the claim was captured, when records were inspected, when the enquiry went out, who answered and when it was published.
XYZ AI
13 claims on record · 8 enterprise verified
Three levels, and what each one actually tells you
The level answers a different question at each layer. None of them is a rating of the vendor, and none of them orders one vendor against another.
The vendor said it
Captured from their own published material and recorded verbatim. Nothing has been tested. Every vendor in a category starts here, including the ones who never commission anything.
Money moved
The commercial record behind the claim was examined at the vendor under non-disclosure. A relationship exists. It establishes nothing whatsoever about whether anything is running.
The organization confirmed it
We wrote to the function named in the claim and they answered: whether it is running, how far it has gone, and whether the vendor's description is accurate. Their identity stays with us.
A level is permanent. Its currency is not. What was established on the day it was established stays on the record for good. After twelve months the entry reads unconfirmed, which is a statement about how recently we checked rather than about the vendor.
Four points in a buying process where the record changes the decision
Longlist
Open the category rather than the vendors. See how many are indexed, how many have taken anything past Level 1, and who is absent from the category altogether.
Narrows on evidence, not on marketing reachShortlist
Read each record end to end. Claims that failed sit next to claims that held, and so do the ones where nobody answered. Ask the vendor about the gaps before they present.
Changes what gets asked in the demoCommittee paper
Attach the record. It is dated, external, free to open, and it says what was established rather than what was promised. Commission a check where the record is thin.
Moves the burden of proof off your teamRenewal
Twelve months on, see whether the deployments that justified the contract are still established anywhere, and whether the vendor let its own record lapse.
Gives the renewal conversation a floorWhen the record does not go deep enough, commission one
Enterprises and investors commission checks on somebody else's claims. The method, the fee and the published outcome are identical to a vendor-commissioned check.
Shortlist check
We take the three to five vendors in front of you and run every claim each of them makes in your category through the five layers. You receive the determinations and the full log.
- Scoped per shortlist
- Four to six weeks
- You are never named as the requester
Category review
Before a shortlist exists. Every vendor in the category, what has been established across all of them, which use cases have working deployments behind them, and which have none.
- One category, every vendor in it
- Six to eight weeks
- Briefed to your committee in person
Everything we establish is published. A check you commission goes onto the public record like any other, because a determination held privately is a favour rather than a standard. What never appears is who asked for it.
Bring the record to the people who have to sign
We sit with investment committees, boards and transformation leadership and take them through what is established in their market: which deployments in their category are real, what stage those have reached, and where the evidence runs out. The research is what we publish. The work happens in the room.
Evaluating someone we have not indexed yet?
Tell us who is on your shortlist. If the vendor is not yet in the Index we open a record, capture every customer claim standing on their own site, and publish what is there. Capture is free, nobody is asked for permission, and the vendor finds out the same way everyone else does.
What the Forum will not do, in any circumstance
These are not policies we reserve the right to revise case by case. They are the reason an enterprise answers us at all.
We never name the organization
Sector, region, size band and function are published. The identity is held by the Forum and is not disclosed to the vendor, to a commissioning party, or to anyone else.
We never score, rank or quadrant
A record states what was established, at what stage, on a date. It does not grade the vendor and it never orders one vendor against another.
Nothing is removed
Claims that did not verify stay published next to the ones that did, and so do the ones where nobody answered. A correction is added and dated. It never deletes what it corrects.
The fee buys the check, never the outcome
Whoever commissions a check pays the same for a determination that holds and one that does not. Who commissioned it is printed on every entry.
What enterprises ask us first
No. Any record opens for anyone holding the link, with no sign-in. Vendors send it into deals, enterprises forward it to committees. What sits behind a login is the register itself: search across every category, the exports, and the underlying claim data.
Because the fee buys the check and not the result, and because the failures are published. A vendor who commissions a check and does not get the determination they wanted has bought a public record of that. Who commissioned every entry is printed on it, so you can weigh it yourself rather than take our word for the arrangement.
No. Requesters are never disclosed, to the vendor or to anyone else. A vendor can see that a record was opened, which happens continuously across every category, but never who asked for it.
That more than twelve months have passed since anyone checked. It does not mean the deployment stopped, and it does not withdraw the level. It means the Forum cannot currently say whether it is still running, and we would rather print that than imply knowledge we do not have.
Corrected, yes, through the Ombuds, with the correction dated and published alongside what it corrects. Taken down, no. A register that can be edited backwards is not a register.
Request them. We open a record on any vendor without asking their permission, capture every customer claim on their own site, and publish it. Capture is free and usually complete inside ten working days.
Put the record in front of the committee
Request a vendor, commission a check on the shortlist in front of you, or have us brief the people who have to approve the decision.