What counts as a tool.: Airframe registry methodology
Finance teams need evidence beyond vendor websites to assess AI spending. Airframe builds registry entries from public filings, fund disclosures, dated announcements, and confirmed reporting. It tracks 24,000+ software products paired with 174,000+ deployment case studies. We accept no vendor funding or sponsored research, and record 0 vendor conflicts.
A registry entry needs a defined unit and verifiable sources. Airframe records a named product, its vendor, evidence of production deployment, and a category corresponding to enterprise work. Published entries include provenance, case studies, peer migration volume, and pricing lineage. We maintain those records as a working file.
A tool in the Airframe registry is a product a finance team would recognize.
An entry must identify something a CIO can buy, deploy, and contract for: a named product, sold or delivered by a legal entity, with deployment evidence at an organization we can name on a case-study record, inside a category corresponding to enterprise work. Candidates missing any of those four requirements remain in staging.
Published entries include category lineage, vendor provenance, case studies, peer migration volume, and pricing changes relative to the category average. We collect this material before publishing.
Plugins, wrappers, and forks remain under their parent product unless they create a distinct working surface. A code package or an extension mentioning AI does not qualify on that basis alone. The product must be recognizable as a budget item.
The five checks each entry completes before publication.
Most candidates initially fail at least one check, commonly provenance or production evidence. These editorial checks help a CIO defend the entry in a review with finance and the board.
- 01 · ProvenanceA known legal entity produces revenue or has funding. A single-person project qualifies only with meaningful enterprise deployment.
- 02 · ProductionAt least one non-attributable case study documents production use in an organization's workflows. Trials, proofs of concept, and LinkedIn posts do not establish that use.
- 03 · SurfaceA distinct product surface the buyer interacts with. A plugin, wrapper, or fork that doesn't change the working surface is catalogued under the parent product, not separately.
- 04 · Category fitMaps to one of the 279 software categories Airframe tracks, each of which corresponds to an enterprise workflow a CFO could recognize on a budget line.
- 05 · CFO defenseWe would stand behind the inclusion to a finance team running a software review. If a CFO could read the entry and say “this is not a product we are being asked to evaluate,” it does not belong.
Each entry has a public source list.
An outside reader must be able to verify an entry's sources. We use public filings, fund disclosures, vendor announcements, and confirmed reporting.
A vendor claim, press release, website tagline, or sales conversation can prompt research. We require corroborating public evidence before publication. Each published entry includes a date stamp and source list visible in the workspace.
- 01 · FilingsPublic regulatory filings, S-1s, 10-Ks, 10-Qs, and disclosed M&A documents from listed and registered issuers.
- 02 · FundsDisclosed venture, growth, and PE positions; secondary marks where they are reported; LP letters made public.
- 03 · AnnouncementsVendor announcements that name a customer, a deployment, a contract, or a metric the company has staked publicly.
- 04 · PressPress confirmations from outlets where the editorial standard is verifiable, with the article on file as the citation.
Reconciled nightly, audited at quarter close.
Each night, the registry reconciles its source list for new filings, funding events, vendor announcements, and confirmed reporting. Routine changes update in place. Material changes wait for human review.
Acquisitions, IPOs, ownership changes, meaningful valuation changes, and lineage reclassifications require researcher review before publication.
At quarter close, an audit compares the previous quarter's changes with current public sources and reconciles differences. It also reviews category lineage and vendor provenance end to end.
- ReconciliationNightly, against the defined public source list. Routine changes apply in place; material changes hold for review.
- Material changesAcquisition, IPO, ownership change, reclassification, and meaningful valuation moves go to human review before they publish.
- Audit passQuarter close, full sweep across published changes, category lineage, and vendor provenance.
- VisibilityEvery row carries a date stamp inside the workspace, so a reader can see when the row last reconciled.
Customer-funded research. No vendor sponsorship.
Vendor independence allows us to publish migration patterns, renewal exposure, and valuation changes without financial pressure from the companies covered. Researchers disclose procedural conflicts on the affected entry.
We report zero vendor conflicts and maintain that independence as coverage grows. Finance teams and AI leaders can use the registry together to assess what to buy, retain, or replace.
- Vendor sponsorshipNone. Companies covered by the registry do not fund it.
- Sponsored researchNone. We accept no paid white papers, syndicated reports, or analyst retainers from vendors.
- Conflicts0 to date. Prior employment, investment, or advisory relationships with a vendor are disclosed on the entry, which a second researcher reviews before publication.
- Funded byCustomers fund the workspace product.
Public sources establish the basis for inclusion, supported by research free of vendor funding.
Read the registry the way a finance team would.
A human-built Stack Audit, Vendor Deep Dive, or Renewal Briefing applies the 24,000 entries and 174,000 case studies to a specific decision.