Nine questions to ask intranet vendors: A checklist for your next demo

An intranet demo is designed to make the product look good. It’s easy to walk away impressed, especially now that AI is typically part of the pitch. But demos are controlled environments that don’t reflect the complex – and, at times, unpredictable – realities of your workplace. In this post, Sophie Hamblett, Senior Content Marketing Executive at Interact, shares nine questions to ask intranet vendors to see how the platform will really handle your organization’s needs.  

If you’re deciding what to ask in an intranet demo, these questions belong on your list: 

1. How representative is this demo environment of the intranet we’ll actually run? 

A demo environment is usually tidier than a live intranet, so check how closely it matches yours before trusting the results. Ask whether the vendor can use a representative sample of your intranet pages, documents, attachments, and permissions during the demo, so you can see how the platform handles the data and content it will face in practice. That’s especially important when assessing AI features – OECD’s 2026 guidance says it’s crucial to evaluate AI using data that reflects intended use. You may need to create some new pages and personas specifically for the demo, rather than sharing confidential data. 

If your own content can’t be used, dig into the vendor’s demo environment. Ask how many pages and authors it includes, whether it contains outdated or conflicting information, and how permissions work. Also ask what preparation went into making the environment demo-ready. Was anything manually tagged, cleaned up, reorganized, or configured specifically for the demo? This reveals what your team would need to do to achieve similar results. 

What a weak answer looks like: The vendor can’t use your content and can’t clearly explain how representative its demo environment is, or how much preparation went into it. 

2. Can we choose the intranet search questions you test live? 

You should be able to, and it’s one of the most revealing tests in any demo. Come ready with real questions employees ask, including exact wording. You can find these in your search logs, service desk tickets, or recurring HR queries. They’ll give you a much better test than polished vendor-supplied prompts because they reflect the language, shorthand, and frustrations employees already bring to search. 

Interact’s analysis of millions of AI Search queries found that employees increased their search activity by around 121% once they could ask questions in plain language. If you want a platform that delivers a high rate of adoption, it needs to handle the way your employees actually talk. 

What a weak answer looks like: Every query needs to be supplied in advance, or the vendor keeps steering the demo to prepared searches. 

3. Can you show us where each AI output came from? 

Every AI output the platform provides should be easily verifiable by the employee asking for it. Ask the vendor how the AI presents its sources for one straightforward question and one multi-part question. Open the cited pages or documents and check that the sources are current, the demo user has permission to access them, and that each part of the output can be backed up. 

What a weak answer looks like: Sources appear, but the vendor can’t show how each one supports the output. 

4. Can the platform adapt for different employees? 

Ask the vendor to repeat identical scenarios using profiles that differ by role, location, department, or permissions. You want to see that the platform changes based on what’s relevant for each employee, while keeping universal information consistent. 

Put yourself in the mind of each type of employee and think about their everyday needs. Explore their homepage, ask a policy question, or view recommended content. Ask yourself what should differ among profiles (like mandatory reads) and what shouldn’t (like company-wide leadership updates). 

What a weak answer looks like: The vendor says targeting exists but can’t demonstrate the differences in real time. 

5. What happens when the intranet shouldn't answer? 

A well-built intranet should qualify incomplete answers or decline to answer, rather than confidently give wrong information. Ask the vendor to test a few scenarios the platform doesn’t have answers for – searching for a policy that doesn't exist, asking about information that lives in outdated or conflicting sources, or attempting to retrieve content the demo profile isn't permitted to access. 

For permissions, use one account with access to restricted content and one without. Ask from both, then try an indirect ask from the unauthorized profile. Check the output and citations for anything that shouldn't be visible. If you want to go deeper, our post on three essential intranet AI capabilities covers permissions, knowledge gaps, and relevance. 

What a weak answer looks like: The vendor avoids failure cases or assumes your content will always be complete and current. 

6. How would important information reach an employee who never searches for it? 

Important updates should be pushed to the people who need them through targeted channels, rather than waiting for employees to go looking. Ask the vendor to show how an urgent policy change, operational update, or mandatory communication would reach an employee who rarely visits the intranet. Then ask how targeting works across roles, locations, shifts, and channels, and how your team would know the intended audience received key information. 

That could include mobile notifications, email, Teams, Slack, or digital signage. You should be able to reach the right people without a separate workflow for every audience. 

What a weak answer looks like: "Employees can find it on the intranet," when the point is reaching people who won't look. 

7. What will our team have to do to keep this working after launch? 

An examination of admin effort belongs on any useful intranet vendor checklist. Ask the vendor to perform an ordinary task your comms, HR, or intranet team will repeat, like updating content, configuring targeting, or dealing with stale and duplicate information.  

Watch what happens automatically, what’s manual, and when technical help is needed. A great employee experience can still be hard to sustain if it requires high effort from your team. 

What a weak answer looks like: "Everything is configurable," without showing who configures it or what needs specialist support from IT. 

8. Can the intranet complete a real task through the systems we already use? 

A modern intranet should complete everyday tasks, like booking PTO or raising a ticket, inside the systems you already use, not just link out to them. Bring a shortlist of the integrations that matter most to your digital workplace, then ask the vendor to complete a realistic task using one of them. Seeing how someone books PTO, raises a ticket, or submits a form means you’ll understand how it actually works in practice. 

A logo wall won't tell you much. For every third-party tool you use, ask whether the integration links to the third party’s website or app, displays information, passes data, or completes a task independently – and how that works behind the scenes. 

What a weak answer looks like: An integration logo or outbound link is treated as proof that the workflow is connected. 

9. Can you show us how we'd measure and audit the platform’s performance? 

You'll want to see how easy it is to monitor activity and results on the intranet over time. After the vendor completes one of your scenarios, ask to see the evidence it created. That might include who received a communication, what an employee was shown, whether they completed an action, and when each step happened. Good intranet vendor evaluation should reveal the trail behind the employee-facing experience, not just the experience itself. 

What a weak answer looks like: The vendor shows aggregate views or logins but can't trace the journey you just saw. 

What other questions should you ask intranet vendors? 

You should also ask about usability, branding, security and compliance, implementation, and adoption support. These nine questions for intranet vendors cover things a polished demo can make harder to judge, but they don't replace the rest of your buying due diligence.  

Your wider intranet vendor questions should still cover the basics that determine whether the platform fits your organization, your team, and the way you work.  

Examples include: 

• How easy is the experience for employees to use and access? 

• How much can you tailor design and branding to your organization? 

• Which security, hosting, compliance, and accessibility requirements does the platform support? 

• What do implementation, onboarding, migration, and training look like? 

• How will the vendor help you drive adoption after launch? 

Our 14 questions to ask in an EX product demo covers the foundations of what to ask in an intranet demo, while our post on evaluating employee experience platforms explains demos, trials, and POCs. 

How should you use these questions in your next intranet demo? 

Use these intranet software demo questions to compare experiences across the platforms you're considering. Give the vendor enough notice to prepare the right employee profiles, content, and systems, but save some exact prompts and scenarios for the meeting itself. During the demo, capture what worked, what needs a follow-up, and what you'd want proved again before making a decision. 

The table below summarizes all nine questions to ask intranet vendors, what each one tests, and how to tell a strong answer from a weak one. Use it as a scorecard for every platform on your shortlist. 

Question	What it tests	What a strong answer looks like	What a weak answer looks like
1. Demo environment	Whether results will hold up with your content	Uses your sample content, or explains exactly how its demo was prepared	Can't use your content or explain how its demo was set up
2. Live search questions	How search copes with real employee language	Runs your exact queries live, with no rehearsal	Needs every query in advance or steers you to prepared searches
3. AI sources	Whether AI outputs can be verified	Shows current, permitted sources behind each part of the answer	Shows sources but can't link them to what the answer says
4. Different employees	Personalization by role, location, and permissions	Runs the same scenario across profiles and shows the differences live	Says targeting exists but can't show it
5. Unanswerable questions	Handling of gaps, conflicts, and restricted content	Qualifies incomplete answers and declines restricted requests	Avoids failure cases or assumes your content is always complete
6. Reaching non-searchers	Targeted communication across channels	Shows targeting by role, location, and shift, plus proof of receipt	"Employees can find it on the intranet"
7. Admin effort	The workload your team takes on after launch	Performs a routine admin task live and shows what's automated	"Everything is configurable," with no demonstration
8. Real tasks	How deep integrations go	Completes a real task, like booking PTO, in a connected system	Treats a logo or outbound link as proof
9. Measurement and audit	Visibility of activity and results	Traces the journey you just saw, step by step	Shows only aggregate views or logins

Keep these questions for intranet vendors on hand for your next demo, and your wider intranet vendor evaluation.  

Our newest guide, which inspired these nine questions, is Interact's 12 essential AI intranet capabilities guide and interactive scorecard, which has practical tests for assessing everything a modern AI intranet must accomplish, plus three essential passes that separate the best from the rest.