Mathew PaquetChecklist · 4 min read
The AI Owner Check
Four questions to ask about any AI tool you rely on, and the exact day to ask them, before a change of owner lands on you.
When you pick an AI agent, you're also picking who owns it. Manus shows what that means:
Manus handled it better than most companies would: a backup tool, no charge during the backup window, no restore deadline. But the chore still landed on the users, on a date they didn't choose, for a reason none of them caused.
Swap the names, any buyer, any regulator, any owner, and the same thing can happen to a tool that has nothing to do with China.Run the four questions below on every AI tool your work lives in.
Manus had moved its headquarters to Singapore, and Meta said there would be no continuing Chinese ownership. The law firm Morgan Lewis calls what happened "origin over domicile": the regulator ignored the address and looked at where the technology was built. It says the U.S. reads companies the same way now.
Most software contracts have a clause about this. It's usually called change of control: what happens when the company is bought, merged or sold. Almost nobody reads it. It should answer three things.
Clause found in: [CONTRACT / TERMS, SECTION]
Notice I get before changes: [DAYS, OR "NOT STATED"]
Can I take my data with me: [YES, HOW / NOT STATED]
When my data gets deleted: [WHEN / NOT STATED]
Checked on: [DATE]
If it says nothing. You're relying on the next owner being as careful as Manus was. Write "not stated" and treat it as a gap.
Would the warning reach anyone?
Manus said it didn't have the email address of people who signed up with an Apple ID or a Facebook account, so it told them to check their in-app notifications. If your vendor had 12 days to warn you, where would the email go?
What's your plan if the tool is gone for two days?
Not forever. Two days. The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (GOVERN 6.2) calls for contingency processes for failures or incidents in AI systems you get from someone else. For most teams, that plan is one page.
What stops if it's gone for two days: [TASKS, FILES, SITES]
Who does it by hand: [PERSON]
Where the latest copy of the work lives: [LOCATION OUTSIDE THE TOOL]
Last copy taken: [DATE]
It's not the day something breaks. It's the day of the good news. When a tool you rely on announces a buyer, a merger, or a big new investor, that's your signal. That day:
Start here. Which AI tool would hurt your business most if its owner changed tomorrow, and could you get your work out of it today? Run the check on that one first.
Nobody could have stopped what happened to Manus. But on December 29, every one of its users could have started getting ready.
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