How do you negotiate data portability in AI vendor contracts?

Most AI vendor contracts are written to protect the vendor's interests, not yours. The standard terms give the vendor broad rights to your data, limited portability, and vague deletion commitments. Every one of these terms is negotiable. Vendors who tell you otherwise are counting on you not asking.

Data export: insist on the ability to export all your data, all fine-tuned model weights, and all derived artifacts in open, standard formats at any time. Not just at contract end. At any time. If the vendor cannot support this, your data is trapped the moment you upload it.

No derived rights: read the IP section carefully. Many contracts include language granting the vendor the right to use your data to improve their models. That means your proprietary operational data, your customer data, your competitive intelligence, is training a model that your competitors also use. Strike this clause or add an explicit carve-out for your data.

Deletion: the contract should specify that upon termination, all your data is deleted from the vendor's systems within 30 days, with written certification from a named officer. 'Reasonable efforts to delete' is not a commitment. It is a loophole. SynthesisArc helps clients negotiate these terms during the INSIGHTS engagement so sovereignty is built in from the contract stage.