How to choose an AI CRM: Six questions to ask before you sign

Quick summary

Six questions settle most of an AI CRM evaluation: who fills the CRM in, whether the objects match your business, whether an outside agent can read and write on the plan you would buy, what you keep if you leave, whether a marketing suite is the real requirement, and how the pricing works. Lightfield is built for teams that want customer conversations to drive CRM updates without reps entering every detail by hand.

What makes an AI CRM worth buying?

You can settle most of an AI CRM evaluation with six questions. Each one has an answer you can check in a demo or read in the quote.

We build Lightfield, so we say where Lightfield stands on each question. Use them to hold every vendor, us included, to the same standard.

1. Who fills the CRM in?

Ask to see an account after a call that nobody touched. If a rep still has to log the call or paste in a summary, a person is filling the CRM in, and the AI is reading their notes.

A good answer names the sources. In Lightfield, records update themselves from email, calendar, and meetings, and meetings are recorded and transcribed. Ask each vendor which of those sources write to the account without anyone logging them.

2. Do the objects match your business?

Many businesses sell around things that are not a company or a contact, such as trials, sites, or inventory. List the things your own team tracks, and ask the vendor to build one of them in front of you.

Ask also whether the agent works with fields on those objects or only on the standard ones. In Lightfield, custom objects and relationships are set up to match how your business works, and custom objects are available on Starter.

3. Can an outside agent read and write on the plan you would buy?

If you already use an agent such as Claude, it should be able to work in the CRM. In Lightfield, every record is readable and writable through the REST API (public beta) and the MCP server, and both are available on Starter. Access follows workspace permissions. With any vendor, confirm that the plan named in your quote includes the access you saw in the demo.

4. What do you keep if you leave?

Two things are worth keeping: the process you wrote down for the agent, and the data.

In Lightfield, you own the Knowledge, Skills, and Automations you build, and you can inspect them. Record exports are supported, and a broad export can cover accounts, contacts, opportunities, custom objects, tasks, notes, and meetings. A record export is not a full workspace backup, so email history, attachments, transcripts, and recordings need separate handling.

Ask each vendor to show you where your instructions live, whether you can read them in full, and exactly what comes out in an export.

5. Is a marketing suite or service desk the real requirement?

If you need marketing automation and service workflows in the same product, HubSpot is the better fit for all-in-one breadth, especially marketing. A team can also keep HubSpot for marketing and run sales in Lightfield through the documented one-way integration, which has a Pro prerequisite. Lightfield does not include a helpdesk, and it does not replace every part of a CRM suite.

Answer this question first if you can, because it can end the evaluation early.

6. How does the pricing work?

AI CRMs charge in different ways, which makes two quotes hard to compare. Lightfield charges per user on its entry plan and per workspace on the plans above it, billed annually. On those plans, workspace credits are a pooled allowance for the workspace, with no rollover.

Three questions make any vendor's quote comparable:

• What counts as a seat? In Lightfield, Starter covers up to 3 seats at $89 per user per month, billed monthly. Pro and Growth include capture seats, and an additional capture seat costs $200 per month, billed annually.
• What uses credits or usage fees? Ask each vendor to list them.
• What does the entry plan leave out? In Lightfield, Starter does not include workflows and automations, which start on Pro.

Current plans and prices are on Lightfield's pricing page.

Three more answers to get in writing

Ask every vendor three more things before you sign, and get the answers in writing.

• Which compliance standards do you hold, and which are in progress? A vendor should keep the two apart. Lightfield's SOC 2 Type II is current, and a BAA is available on request.
• Where is our data stored? Ask about the model providers behind the product as well. Lightfield is hosted on AWS, encrypts data at rest and in transit, and stores it in the United States.
• How long until the first account is filled in? Ask what has to be connected first and who has to do it. In Lightfield, each mailbox whose history you want must be connected and authorized, and historical sync runs in the background, so completion time depends on the amount of history.

Test the CRM with your own data

The right AI CRM should fit your sales process, handle your team's data, and make its costs clear before you commit. The best check is to see the product work with your own calls and accounts. Book a demo to run these six questions against Lightfield.

Common questions about choosing

1. How long does it take to set up an AI CRM?

It depends on the CRM, the data you need to import, and the tools you connect. Ask the vendor what your team has to configure first. In Lightfield, connecting a mailbox and importing an old CRM are separate steps, and historical sync runs in the background.

2. Does Lightfield have a free plan?

Starter is the entry plan at $89 per user per month, billed monthly, and it includes a 14-day trial.

3. How does Lightfield compare with Attio, Reevo, or HubSpot?

HubSpot is the better fit for all-in-one breadth, especially marketing. For any of the three, run the six questions above with your own calls and data and compare the answers.