Our security questionnaire answering service helps SaaS and AI startups respond to enterprise security questionnaires. We map SIG, CAIQ and custom questions to your evidence, draft answers with expert review, and build a reusable answer bank.
A security questionnaire is a structured set of questions that enterprise buyers send to vendors to assess their information security posture before approving a procurement. Common formats include the SIG (Standardised Information Gathering) questionnaire, the CAIQ (Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire) for cloud providers, and bespoke questionnaires created by the buyer's security or legal team. A full SIG has over 1,000 questions across 19 risk domains.
Enterprise buyers send SIG, SIG Lite, CAIQ, and custom vendor questionnaires before they'll sign a contract. We draft accurate, audit-consistent answers — fast — so your deal doesn't stall.
A £300,000 enterprise deal arrives. The buyer's security team sends you a 900-question SIG questionnaire. You need to respond within 10 business days or the deal goes on hold. Your CTO estimates it will take three weeks of engineer time to complete it accurately. Your sales team is panicking. Your engineers don't want to touch it.
This is one of the most common deal-blockers for AI startups in enterprise sales. And the damage compounds: every questionnaire you answer ad hoc becomes a liability — inconsistent answers across questionnaires create contradictions that diligent buyers will find.
ProtectifyAI drafts your questionnaire responses accurately and consistently. We build an answer bank mapped to your actual security posture so future questionnaires can reuse reviewed answers and evidence.
The most common enterprise vendor risk assessment. Full SIG: 1,000+ questions across 19 domains. SIG Lite: shorter version for lower-risk vendors.
Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire — the standard for cloud provider security assessments. Aligned to the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix.
Many enterprise buyers (banks, insurance companies, US government contractors) send their own security questionnaires. We handle these too.
Enterprise buyers increasingly include AI governance sections in their questionnaires — covering model transparency, bias assessment, training data, and EU AI Act compliance.
For an enterprise security questionnaire for startups, we first triage and deduplicate the questions, then map them to existing evidence and a reviewed answer bank. AI-assisted drafting can help organise the responses, but a human security expert checks each answer against your actual controls. We ask subject matter experts about genuine gaps, check consistency across answers and supporting documents, then deliver the buyer's requested format alongside a reusable answer bank. This process also applies to AI security questionnaire sections and SIG questionnaire automation workflows.
Timing depends on the questionnaire's length and complexity, the maturity of the organisation's existing answer bank and evidence, and the availability of technical and control owners. ProtectifyAI confirms scope and an indicative timetable after reviewing the questionnaire.
Read our step-by-step guide to answering vendor questionnaires for practical triage and ownership advice, or see the security questionnaire answer-bank guide to understand how prior answers and evidence are reused across future reviews.
The 36-point checklist we use before responding to any enterprise security questionnaire — covering pre-response review, answer consistency, sensitive question flags, certification evidence, and submission format. Enter your email to receive it.
Outcome-based pricing. Fixed fee per questionnaire engagement or monthly retainer for ongoing support.
ISO 27001 or SOC 2 is not always required to complete a security questionnaire. Independent assurance can reduce repeated evidence requests, but buyers may still ask product-, architecture-, privacy-, resilience- and AI-governance-specific questions. Ask us about bundling questionnaire support with implementation.
For practical guidance before you book, read our step-by-step vendor questionnaire guide, SIG, CAIQ and custom questionnaire comparison, security questionnaire answer-bank guide, and security questionnaire automation options for startups.
A security questionnaire is a structured set of questions that enterprise buyers send to vendors before approving a procurement. The most common formats are the SIG (Standardised Information Gathering), CAIQ (for cloud providers), and custom questionnaires from large enterprise and regulated-sector buyers. A full SIG questionnaire has over 1,000 questions across 19 risk domains.
Timing depends on the questionnaire's length and complexity, the maturity of the organisation's existing answer bank and evidence, and the availability of technical and control owners. ProtectifyAI confirms scope and an indicative timetable after reviewing the questionnaire.
The SIG (Standardised Information Gathering) questionnaire is the most common enterprise vendor risk assessment tool, created by Shared Assessments. It covers 19 risk domains including information security, cloud services, data privacy, business continuity, and (in recent versions) AI governance. The full SIG has over 1,000 questions; the SIG Lite is a shorter version used for lower-risk vendors.
ISO 27001 or SOC 2 is not always required to complete a security questionnaire. Independent assurance can reduce repeated evidence requests, but buyers may still ask product-, architecture-, privacy-, resilience- and AI-governance-specific questions.
Enterprise buyers often follow up with clarifying questions or schedule a customer security call (sometimes called a security review call or vendor security review). ProtectifyAI manages follow-up questions and can join or lead customer security calls on your behalf — ensuring your answers are consistent and your team doesn't need to become security experts.
Yes. Enterprise buyers increasingly include AI-specific sections in their questionnaires covering model transparency, training data, bias assessment, EU AI Act compliance, and AI governance frameworks. These are some of the hardest questions for AI startups to answer accurately — and getting them wrong can stall deals or create legal exposure. ProtectifyAI drafts AI governance answers that are accurate, proportionate, and consistent with your technical reality.
AI security questionnaire tools can suggest drafts from approved answers and evidence, but a human expert should check every claim against current controls, product behaviour and buyer requirements. We use AI-assisted drafting where useful, with human review before submission.
SIG questionnaire automation can match recurring questions to a maintained answer bank and evidence. A reviewer still needs to verify the version, scope and wording, resolve gaps with control owners, and approve the final answers. Automation helps organise the work; it cannot attest to controls you have not implemented.
Reuse a reviewed answer bank and current evidence rather than drafting from scratch. Triage buyer-specific questions, ask the relevant subject matter experts only about genuine gaps, and check the final response for consistency. The time needed depends on the review and the evidence available.
We'll scope the response, identify the hard questions, and tell you exactly how we'd handle it. 45 minutes.
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