Methodology: How vettedaiagents.com Vets AI Agent Vendors
The editorial workflow, source policy, watchlist policy, quarterly cadence, and disclosures behind the vetting process.
Why publish the methodology
The trust register of an editorial directory depends on transparency. We publish the methodology for three reasons: so buyers can audit the process and verify that we applied the criteria consistently; so vendors know exactly what bar they need to clear; and so the site is auditable if a vendor disputes a profile.
Editorial vetting is not certification. We are not Schellman, BSI, or Bureau Veritas. We do not conduct on-site audits, do not run penetration tests, and do not review vendor documentation under NDA. We apply a published set of criteria using public sources. The boundary of what we claim to have done and what we have not done is named explicitly throughout the site.
The seven criteria are available at /vetting-criteria. The source index is at /sources. The watchlist is at /watchlist.
The 4-Stage Vetting Workflow
From candidate identification to published profile.
We identify candidate vendors from industry publications, Vendr and G2 marketplace data, Schellman and BSI certified-vendor lists, GitHub awesome-AI-agents lists, the Agentic List conference directory, sister-site research on aiagentforcustomerservice.com and aiagentforsales.com, and submit-your-agent form submissions. At this stage we are asking a simple question: is this a real AI agent vendor with a real product in production? We are not applying the quality bar yet.
For each candidate we verify the seven criteria using public sources only. Certifications: vendor trust center URL cross-checked against Schellman, BSI, or Drata public registries where available. Named references: vendor customer page cross-checked against the customer's own blog post, press release, or case study. Pricing: vendor pricing page if public, or Vendr and G2 marketplace listings with date accessed. Founding date and team: LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and vendor about page. Every verified claim receives a source URL stamped in the dataset.
We apply the seven criteria from the vetting-criteria manifesto. Each criterion is scored pass, partial, or fail per vendor. A partial is used where a criterion is met in part: for example, a vendor with SOC 2 + ISO 27001 but not ISO 42001 passes the security criterion partially. Five or more passes lists the vendor. Four or fewer passes places the vendor on the watchlist with the specific gap named. Watchlist placement is not a rejection; it is a transparency mechanism.
The vendor profile is written or the matrix mini-card is prepared. Every profile carries a Vetting last reviewed [Month] [Year] stamp. At v1 the profile is reviewed by a single editor before publication. The v1.5 quarterly pass adds a second-editor review for all profiles. The profile is reviewed again at each quarterly cadence. The dataset schema includes a vetting_last_reviewed field that drives the visible stamp on every page.
Source Policy
What we cite: vendor trust centers, vendor customer pages, vendor pricing pages, third-party marketplace listings (Vendr, G2, public marketplace with date accessed), press coverage in named publications, analyst reports from named firms, standards body references (iso.org, aiuc.io, schellman.com), and sister-portfolio sites where directly relevant.
What we do not cite:posts on X (formerly Twitter) unless from the vendor's official account in a factual announcement, Reddit comments, anonymous LinkedIn posts, AI-generated content (including from this site's own tools), and any source we cannot independently verify the author of.
Paywalled sources: we note the source and date accessed when a Vendr or G2 Premium source is behind a paywall. We report the public summary range only and do not quote paywalled pricing exactly. Paywalled sources used for triangulation are flagged in the dataset.
Vendor-claimed numbers: deflection rates, accuracy benchmarks, customer-count ranges, and similar metrics that come from the vendor and are not independently audited are flagged vendor-claimed in amber on the profile. We report them because they are procurement-relevant information; we flag them because they have not been independently verified.
Building effective agents reference: the patterns and reliability framework at buildingeffectiveagents.com is used in the methodology context where the Anthropic agent patterns reference applies.
Watchlist Policy
Vendors that pass four or fewer of the seven criteria are placed on the watchlist. The watchlist is a transparency mechanism, not a rejection. It exists so buyers can understand why a vendor they may have heard of is not yet on the main list, and what would qualify them.
Every watchlist entry names the specific criteria that are unmet and what evidence would move the vendor to the main list. The four watchlist vendors at v1 launch are 11x, Crescendo, Hebbia, and Adept / research-stage. See /watchlist.
A vendor moves off the watchlist by passing five or more criteria at the next quarterly re-vet. Major changes (acquisition, certification loss, pricing model shift) trigger immediate re-evaluation between quarterly reviews.
Quarterly Re-Vet Cadence
Every ninety days the entire dataset is reviewed. Quarterly review dates: March, June, September, December. The Vetting last reviewed [Month] [Year] stamp on each profile shows when the profile was last verified. The next review after the April 2026 launch is scheduled for July 2026.
Major changes trigger immediate updates between cadence reviews: a vendor loses a certification, gets acquired (as Drift was acquired by Salesloft), shifts pricing model significantly (as HubSpot Breeze did in April 2026 with a pivot to outcome-based pricing), or discloses a new certification that changes their criteria score.
Disclosures
Affiliate and referral relationships: where a listed vendor runs a public partner program (Intercom, Apollo, Clay, Anthropic, Aisera), the site uses neutral non-affiliate links in the vendor profile body. Affiliate links are confined to a clearly labelled Buyer Assistance sidebar block with visible disclosure. Editorial scoring is never affected by affiliate availability.
Sister-site relationships: we own aiagentforcustomerservice.com, aiagentforsales.com, and related portfolio sites. These are disclosed here. Customer-service vendor profiles link once to aiagentforcustomerservice.com for pricing depth. Sales vendor profiles link once to aiagentforsales.com for pricing depth. These links are one-way and contextually relevant, not reciprocal.
No display advertising at launch: no Carbon Ads, EthicalAds, or network display advertising at launch. The trade-publication register requires editorial independence from display advertising. Reconsidered only at twelve months if traffic is at scale and placement is genuinely contextual.
The boundary of editorial vetting: we are not a certified compliance auditor. We do not conduct on-site audits, penetration tests, or private security reviews. We apply published criteria using public sources. The disclaimer on every page of this site makes this explicit. Buyers must verify directly with vendors before purchasing.