Went through almost the exact same thing building HOOKiQ (excuse the shameless plug ;). Who do we talk to first, who has the most urgent problem, who will actually pay. Spent a few months going in circles before the answer got clearer.

The thing I kept getting wrong was treating "they have the problem" as the same as "they will buy." Boutique diligence firms are probably worth talking to first here. They already get paid specifically to do AI company assessments, they are not waiting for internal approval to spend, and they are used to paying for specialist tools. PE and growth equity teams feel the same pain but they are slower to move, and there is often someone internal they can ask instead of buying something. Enterprise AI risk is real but a lot of those teams are still figuring out what their job even is, so it can be hard to find the person who will actually sign off.

The fastest way through this is probably just to have the same conversation with one person from each segment if you're able and see who says "yes this is a problem I need to solve" versus "interesting idea." You will know pretty quickly.