How do you run technical duediligence on an AI-built product?

When a product was built largely with AI tools, standard due diligence still applies, but the failure modes shift. You’re no longer only asking “is this well built,” you’re asking “can this team keep building it, and do they truly own it.” Those two questions change valuations, and they’re exactly what an experienced technical leader is trained to surface.

The standard layer

• Code quality and structure: Is it readable and maintainable, or a tangle only its author navigates?
• Security: Authentication, data protection, exposed secrets, and known vulnerabilities.
• Scalability: Will the architecture hold at the growth the deal assumes?
• Test coverage: Is there a safety net, or does every change risk a regression?

The AI-specific layer

• Codebase comprehension: Ask the team to explain how core parts work. If the app was vibe-coded, they may not know, and that’s a maintenance risk you’re buying.
• IP ownership: Confirm who owns AI-generated code and that the tools’ terms permit commercial use. Ownership of AI-assisted output is still unsettled ground; get it in writing.
• Tool and dependency lock-in: Is the product tied to a specific AI platform in a way that’s costly to unwind?
• Documentation: Does anything explain the system, or does the knowledge live in one founder’s head?

Why a fractional CTO does it better

You can work through this checklist yourself, but a fractional CTO brings pattern recognition from auditing many codebases: they know which AI-generated shortcuts hide real liabilities, how to price a hardening phase, and how to turn findings into terms a board will trust. They also give you an independent, credible verdict you can’t sign off on alone.

What the findings mean

Clean results support the valuation. Gaps don’t necessarily kill a deal, but they become negotiating points: budget for a hardening phase, a maintainability discount, or a retention plan for whoever understands the code. The worst outcome is discovering after the deal that no one can safely change the product.