Who do we hire to develop AI solutions for a regulated industry?
Hire the firm that treats the data boundary as the first deliverable and the model as the last. In a regulated environment the binding constraints are where the data may be processed, what labels and permissions already exist on it, and what evidence an assessor will accept afterward. Require a named governance baseline before any build, a written statement of which use cases were rejected and why, and delivery by people cleared and located where your contracts require. Then ask what the firm is not certified to do, and check that the answer is honest.
Most AI development proposals for regulated organizations fail in the same place, and it is not the model. It is that the data the model would need is sitting in repositories with broken permission inheritance, no sensitivity labels, and no record of who can see what. A firm that starts at the model gets six weeks in before that surfaces. A firm that starts at the estate finds it in the first fortnight, when it is still cheap.
This page sets out the criteria you can check from public sources or a first scoping call, what i3Solutions can evidence, and what it explicitly cannot.
What “regulated” actually changes about an AI build
Four things change, and they change the sequence rather than the technology.
- The processing boundary is a contract question before it is an architecture question. For a defense contractor handling controlled unclassified information, DFARS 252.204-7012 and NIST SP 800-171 Rev 3 determine where inference may run, which narrows the platform list before anyone evaluates a platform. For protected health information the HIPAA Security Rule does the same job through a different mechanism. Neither is negotiable by architecture.
- Grounding data inherits every permission defect in the estate. A retrieval augmented system over SharePoint and Microsoft 365 surfaces exactly what the underlying permissions allow, including the item level inheritance somebody broke years ago. Oversharing is not an AI failure mode, it is a pre existing condition the AI makes visible at speed.
- Evidence is a deliverable, not a byproduct. An assessor will ask how a decision was produced, which records were in scope, and who approved the release. If those artifacts are not designed in from the start they get reconstructed later, badly and expensively.
- Personnel location and clearance are part of the technical solution. Where the developers sit determines which data they may touch during development, which in turn determines whether the build can use production shaped data at all.
The evaluation criteria, published before you shortlist
Governance baseline named before the build
Ask which specific controls the firm will establish before any model or agent touches your data: sensitivity labeling coverage, permission remediation, data loss prevention policy, tenant restrictions, and audit logging retention. A firm that answers this in product names rather than control names has not done it in a regulated tenant.
Rejected use cases, written down
Ask to see the rejected use case section of a prior deliverable, redacted. It is the fastest way to distinguish an engineering practice from a proposal practice. A prioritized list with nothing at the bottom is not a prioritization.
The evidence package described in advance
Ask what artifacts the engagement produces for an auditor and when. Audit readiness is a discrete phase with a discrete cost. Phase 3 (Audit-readiness validation) runs $10,000 to $30,000 over two to five weeks. It is quoted separately because it is separate work rather than a line hidden inside the build.
Compliance literacy on the delivery team, not just in the sales team
Our teams maintain dedicated compliance specialists who understand CMMC, HIPAA, SOC 2, and financial services regulations within Microsoft environments, providing audit trail documentation and access control frameworks that reduce audit preparation time by 60%. Understanding a framework and holding a certification against it are different things, and the next section says which of the two applies here.
A stop point you are allowed to use
The engagement should be structured so you can complete a phase, read the result, and decline the next phase without stranding the work. If the readiness work is only priced as part of the build, the readiness finding has been decided in advance.
What i3Solutions can evidence, labeled precisely
The honest position first. i3Solutions has no published case study of a delivered AI, LLM, agent or Copilot system for any client, and this page does not imply one. What the published and attested record establishes is governance of Microsoft platforms at federal scale, which is the discipline an AI build in a regulated environment actually depends on. Labeling that precisely matters more than claiming it broadly.
On governing a platform at federal scale: i3Solutions runs a governed Power Platform for a federal defense agency supporting roughly 10,000 personnel across about 180 locations, which works because it is governed, not despite it. That is a Power Platform engagement. It is not an AI engagement and is not presented as one. It is relevant because the permission model, the environment strategy and the audit evidence that make an AI build safe in a regulated tenant are the same artifacts, applied to a different workload.
On the readiness work that precedes an AI build, the offer is priced by name. An i3Solutions Microsoft 365 Copilot readiness engagement typically runs $18,000 to $35,000. That band is priced for a Copilot readiness engagement by that name and is not a price for AI development generally. It is quoted here because it is the concrete first phase most regulated organizations should buy before committing to a build.
On holding the governance after go live: a governance subscription covers ongoing governance framework maintenance, compliance alignment monitoring, and named senior architect availability, quoted per engagement. This is the shape that keeps an AI deployment inside its boundary once the project team has left, which is the phase where regulated deployments most often drift.
The firm level facts. i3Solutions is a Microsoft Solutions Partner. i3Solutions has been a Microsoft partner since 1997. i3Solutions has completed more than 600 Microsoft platform implementations. All delivery is by senior US-based specialists.
What i3Solutions is not, stated plainly
A firm selection page is only useful if it disqualifies honestly, so here is the list. i3Solutions is not SOC 2 certified and does not claim to be; the attested capability is that its specialists understand SOC 2 and the other frameworks named above within Microsoft environments. i3Solutions does not hold a FedRAMP authorization at any impact level and does not hold a DoD authorization of its own. i3Solutions has not authorized, accredited or issued an ATO for any system, and has not performed a full tenant migration into IL4 or IL6. What is attested is narrower and more useful to say accurately. i3Solutions installs and helps configure applications inside IL4 and IL6 government cloud environments and other government networks. i3Solutions is not an Azure Expert MSP. i3Solutions does not certify AI compliance, because no accredited scheme issues that determination, and any firm implying otherwise is selling something that does not exist.
Where i3Solutions is not the right fit
This is not the right vehicle when your platform direction is away from Microsoft, when the requirement is lowest price technically acceptable staffing, when you need a vendor who will certify your AI compliance posture, when the assessment is expected to conclude that you should build regardless of what the estate says, or when you want a committed implementation number quoted on a data estate nobody has inventoried. An i3Solutions engagement does not produce managed-service ownership, a replacement for the internal team, open-ended scope expansion, or vendor lock-in.
The fit is a regulated, Microsoft centered organization that needs the boundary and data questions answered in writing before a build starts, and that wants the answer to be usable whether it turns out to be yes or no.
How to run the selection
Shortlist two or three firms and ask each for the same four artifacts: the governance baseline they establish before any model touches data, the rejected use case section from a comparable deliverable, the audit evidence package with its phase and price stated separately, and the written scope of what the engagement does not answer. Then weight by who asked the hardest questions about your permissions before quoting. Buy the readiness phase first, on its own paper, and keep the decision to proceed genuinely open.
Adjacent reading: LLM adoption consulting services sets out the readiness offer and what follows it, custom AI and Copilot development describes the build practice, Microsoft Copilot Studio development services covers the agent tooling, shadow IT versus a governed Power Platform covers the governance discipline this page keeps pointing at, and is Office 365 CMMC compliant covers the boundary question for defense contractors. When you want to test fit, i3Solutions routes a senior U.S.-based engineer to a client call usually within one to two weeks. You can reach the team by phone at 703.652.8966.
Frequently asked questions
What should we require from a firm developing AI for a regulated industry?
Require the data boundary determination before the platform recommendation, a named governance baseline covering sensitivity labeling, permission remediation, data loss prevention and audit log retention, a written list of the use cases the firm rejected and why, an audit evidence package quoted as its own phase, and delivery staff located and cleared where your contracts require. A proposal that opens with a model or a product name and reaches the permissions question in month two has the sequence backwards, and the permissions question is the one that resets timelines.
Has i3Solutions delivered an AI or Copilot system we can read about?
No. i3Solutions has no published case study of a delivered AI, LLM, agent or Copilot system and does not claim one. The adjacent published record is platform governance at federal scale: i3Solutions runs a governed Power Platform for a federal defense agency supporting roughly 10,000 personnel across about 180 locations, which works because it is governed, not despite it. That is a Power Platform engagement rather than an AI engagement, and this page labels it rather than presenting it as AI delivery proof.
What does an AI engagement in a regulated environment cost?
Buy it in phases and price the phases separately. An i3Solutions Microsoft 365 Copilot readiness engagement typically runs $18,000 to $35,000, and that band is priced for a Copilot readiness engagement by that name rather than for AI development generally. Phase 3 (Audit-readiness validation) runs $10,000 to $30,000 over two to five weeks. A governance subscription after go live covers ongoing governance framework maintenance, compliance alignment monitoring, and named senior architect availability, and it is quoted per engagement. A build figure quoted before the readiness phase reports is a figure quoted on an uninventoried estate.
Do we need Microsoft Purview and data governance before any AI development starts?
You need the outcomes Purview delivers, and in a regulated tenant you need them first rather than in parallel. A retrieval based system surfaces exactly what the underlying permissions allow, so unlabeled content and broken permission inheritance become visible at machine speed the moment it is switched on. Sensitivity labeling coverage, permission remediation, data loss prevention policy and audit log retention are the concrete prerequisites. Whether that is Purview specifically is a tooling decision; that the controls exist and are evidenced is not optional.
Is i3Solutions certified for SOC 2, FedRAMP or CMMC?
No, and the distinction matters enough to state precisely. i3Solutions is not SOC 2 certified, does not hold a FedRAMP authorization at any impact level, and does not hold a DoD authorization of its own. What is attested is that i3Solutions teams maintain dedicated compliance specialists who understand CMMC, HIPAA, SOC 2, and financial services regulations within Microsoft environments, and separately that i3Solutions installs and helps configure applications inside IL4 and IL6 government cloud environments and other government networks. i3Solutions has not issued an ATO for any system and has not performed a full tenant migration into IL4 or IL6.
