The AI Vendor Scorecard: Stop Paying for Tools You Don't Need

Vendor sprawl quietly erodes margins and attention. This episode presents the “AI Vendor Scorecard”—a privacy-first, hands-on method that combines lightweight AI summaries, owner interviews, and low-cost tooling (Google Sheets/Airtable templates, Zapier/Make recipes, and a short Python CSV script) so teams can find redundancies, quantify risk, and act within weeks. Lyric opens with an owner surprised by a renewal and the human cost of unnoticed subscriptions. Nova explains which minimal, privacy-safe signals matter (invoices, billing dates, coarse usage proxies, outcome anchors) and shares a short owner-interview script to validate AI findings. Stryker walks through concrete tool examples: an Airtable import, a Google Sheets overlap matrix + simple formulas, a Zapier recipe to pull billing CSVs, and a 20-line Python snippet to normalize data. Pulse closes with a quarterly cadence, measurable targets (typical 5–20% subscription savings, 2–4 week pilot), and a clear pilot checklist. CTA: visit apexblue.com/vendor-scorecard for the template pack, Airtable sample, Google Sheets import, Zapier recipe, interview script, and prompt pack.