How do I keep a usable record of AI work after changing vendors or cancelling a tool?
Export before you cancel, and export the records, not screenshots of them: every job's steps and receipts, the handovers with their decisions, and the job index, into storage you control. Receipts in the open AER-1 format stay checkable with the open kit after any vendor exit, which is the property to demand before you need it.
Vendor changes expose the difference between records you hold and records you rent. A team that kept its evidence inside one tool discovers, at cancellation, that its delivery history, its client acceptances, and its audit trail were features of a subscription. The exit discipline on this page is short because it must be executable under time pressure, in the notice period, by whoever is left.
The order matters. First the job index, the map of everything, because without it the rest cannot be audited for completeness. Then the records themselves, exported whole: steps, receipts, source states, and the decision layer on handovers. Then the verification test: after export, check one receipt with the open AER-1 kit (kit version 1.5.4) from your own storage, with the vendor's systems uninvolved. An export that cannot pass that test is an archive of pictures.
Make the exit a standing clause, not an emergency: any tool that holds work records must export them in a checkable form, tested annually like a backup restore. Teams that test exports yearly change vendors calmly. Teams that discover export limits during a dispute or an acquisition diligence change vendors the way people leave burning buildings.
Checklist: the vendor-exit record export
1. Job index exported (every job, client, dates, links). 2. Records exported whole: steps, receipts, source states, decisions. 3. Exports stored in two locations you control, named by period. 4. Verification test: one receipt per period recomputed with the open kit from your storage alone. 5. Client-facing copies: handovers clients hold remain theirs; note them in the index. 6. Cancellation confirmed only after steps 1 to 4 pass. Standing rule: repeat the export and the test every year, vendor change or not.
Worked example
The property that survives exit is visible while you are still a customer: a receipt from any job, for example the steps under https://zambo.dev/handover/45434a17-4afc-486a-9646-e689bcee4297 , can be recomputed at https://zambo.dev/verify/ today and with the open kit after any cancellation, because the format is a published draft (AER-1, draft-zambo-aer1-21), not a proprietary export.
Frequently asked questions
We already cancelled. Is the record gone?
Ask the vendor immediately; many retain data for a window, and an export request in the first days often succeeds. Whatever the answer, rebuild the index from invoices and client copies (clients hold their handovers), and mark the period honestly in your records.
What format should the export be in?
The records as data, in the open format they were minted in, plus a human-readable rendering. Screenshots and PDFs alone fail the verification test, because nothing in them can be recomputed.
Does this apply to free tools too?
More so. Free tools owe you the least continuity. Any free surface that touches client work should either feed the recorded system or be treated as scratch space whose outputs are saved into records at the time.
By Brennan Zambo, founder of Zambo.
Last verified: 2026-10-17.
Try a handover
A handover gives your client one proof link with verifiable receipts to review, then Accept or Flag.
try it: say 'use zambo to hand this over to <client>' in your ai