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Late in almost every employee AI deal, security and HR ask a version of the same question: can this chatbot actually give compliant answers from our internal knowledge, or will it improvise? By that point you do not need another essay on AI governance. You need a paste-ready checklist you can run against the vendor and score.
This is that checklist. It covers how to use it, the specific controls that make internal-knowledge answers compliant, the evidence to demand rather than accept on faith, and the red flags that should make you pause. It is deliberately narrow: this is about answering compliantly from your knowledge, not a general security review. Use it in your RFP and hand it to your security team.
The short answer: A chatbot supports compliant internal answers when it restricts responses to approved knowledge, shows or traces its sources, enforces admin and access controls, logs activity, and escalates to a human when confidence or policy requires it. "Connected to SharePoint" is not the same as compliant.
Score each item Yes, Partial, No, or Unknown. Have it filled in jointly by the vendor's solution engineer and your own IT, so claims meet reality in the same conversation. An Unknown is a real result: it means the vendor could not answer on the spot, and it should be resolved before you sign. Require evidence for every Yes, because an unverified Yes is functionally a Partial. Weight the knowledge-boundary and grounding items most heavily, since they determine whether the assistant can say anything other than your approved content in the first place.
Turn the completed scorecard into a decision rather than a document. A cluster of Yes answers across knowledge boundary, grounding, and access control means the assistant can answer compliantly from your knowledge; that is the core requirement. Partial answers define your negotiation: for each one, ask what would make it a Yes and on what timeline. No answers on the knowledge-boundary or grounding items are close to disqualifying, because no amount of logging or retention control compensates for an assistant that can answer from unapproved content. Unknowns are homework: resolve every one before signing, because an Unknown that becomes a No after the contract is the most expensive kind.
For the items above, ask the vendor to provide, not just assert: an architecture or data-flow one-pager showing where data goes and which providers are involved; current SOC 2 reports for review; admin console screenshots showing role separation and source controls; a sample grounded answer with its source visible; and a current subprocessor list. A vendor that can hand these over quickly is telling you something reassuring; one that cannot is telling you something too.
Two artifacts are worth insisting on above the rest. The sample grounded answer, shown live on your own content during a pilot, is the single best proof that grounding works as claimed, because it collapses every abstract assurance into a demonstrable behavior. And the architecture one-pager is what your security team will actually read, so a vendor who has one ready has almost certainly been through serious reviews before. If either is missing, treat the gap as a finding to close before the decision, not a formality to chase afterward.
Three answers should stop the evaluation until resolved. "We search the whole tenant by default" with no allowlisting or exclusion controls means the assistant can surface anything, including content it should never touch. "We do not offer audit log export" means you cannot prove what was asked and answered when it matters. And "we cannot fully explain the model path" means no one can tell you where your data goes. None of these is automatically disqualifying, but each requires a satisfactory answer before you proceed, not after.
At a high level, MeBeBot is built to score Yes across this checklist with evidence: answers restricted to approved, allowlisted sources with visible grounding, permission-aware retrieval, role-based administration, timestamped and exportable logs, human escalation and override, and SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and CCPA alignment with a clear data-processing posture. Rather than take that on faith, the right next step is to run this exact checklist in a technical review and ask for the evidence pack above.
Isn't "connected to SharePoint" enough?
No. Connection determines what the assistant can reach; compliance depends on what it is allowed to use and say. A tool connected to SharePoint with no allowlisting, exclusions, or permission inheritance can still surface drafts, archives, or restricted content. Connection is necessary but not sufficient.
Who should fill in this checklist?
The vendor's solution engineer and your own IT, together, so claims are tested in real time. Bring security in for the access, audit, and data-processing sections. Filling it jointly turns vague reassurances into specific, verifiable answers.
How is this different from a full security review?
This checklist is narrowly about answering compliantly from your internal knowledge: boundaries, grounding, and the controls around them. A full security review is broader, covering the vendor's overall posture. Use this one to settle the knowledge-compliance question specifically, alongside your standard review.
What if a vendor scores mostly Partial?
Partial is common and not automatically disqualifying, but it defines your risk and your negotiation. Turn each Partial into a specific question: what would make it a Yes, and on what timeline? A vendor with a credible path from Partial to Yes is different from one that cannot get there at all.
Compliant answers from internal knowledge come down to a handful of controls: answer only from approved sources, show where answers come from, respect permissions, log everything, and escalate when a human is required. Run this checklist with your IT and the vendor together, demand the evidence pack, and treat the three red flags as hard stops until resolved. It is the fastest way to settle the question security and HR always ask, before the contract, not after.
Want the full checklist to paste into your RFP and security review? Grab it, then book a demo. For the surrounding detail, see our guides on connecting SharePoint the right way, compliance controls, and AI platform security and GDPR/CCPA compliance.
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