Evidence before adjectives.

What qualifies as an Alive Thing?

An Alive Thing senses or receives context, interprets it, chooses or recommends an action, and participates in a feedback loop. It must do this in a product, service, or credible deployment—not only in a concept video.

For software, that usually means carrying work through tools or connected systems. For physical systems, it means autonomous or semi-autonomous action in the world. For wearables, it means persistent context translated into personalized assistance.

What does not qualify?

A generic connected device does not qualify because it has an app. A chat interface does not qualify if it cannot use tools or move work toward an outcome. A remotely piloted machine is not autonomous because it has obstacle warnings. “AI-powered” is a claim to investigate, not an admission ticket.

Source classes

Primary sources come from the company or institution directly: product pages, documentation, release notes, pricing pages, filings, and official announcements. They are the best source for what an organization publicly represents, but they are not independent validation.

Independent secondary sources include reporting, research, benchmarks, reviews, and documented hands-on testing by parties not controlled by the subject. Regulatory and public records include government databases, permits, safety reports, and court or standards records. We identify the source type separately from the claim label.

Source diversity and independence

Each kind of source answers a different question, and we use each one for what it can actually show. Companies and their stores are the best source for specifications, prices and availability. Regulators establish approvals and formal status. Named customers and operators show whether a system is really in use. Independent testers show how it performs in practice. Over time, our own hands-on testing will add direct observation.

We start with the evidence closest to the facts: official documentation and filings, regulator records, named customers and operators, current storefronts, and academic, technical, standards and specialist sources. Reviews and reporting from other publications are used when they offer the strongest independent testing or evidence not available elsewhere, and they are labeled like any other source. We avoid relying on a small number of outlets across the Index, and we periodically revisit records where most of the independent evidence comes from a single kind of source.

Evidence labels

Documented by company source means the cited first-party source directly documents the narrow statement—such as a listed price, announced date, or stated availability. It does not mean ItsAlive.ai independently tested the product or confirmed a performance claim.

Company claim preserves performance, capability, or superiority statements from a first-party source without treating them as independent proof.

Evidence support

Every citation is classified by what the source actually verifies, not merely by who published it. A news story that only relays a company announcement is company-reported. The classes are a set, not a ladder, and a record shows all that apply—for example “Pilot · Company-reported”.

Company-reported: the company says so. Customer-confirmed: the named customer says so, in its own words or quoted by name in a report. Regulator-documented: a regulator’s own record. Independently verified: an independent publisher checked it for itself, and the record says what was checked. Directly observed / tested: ItsAlive.ai saw or tested it.

Evidence stage

Demonstrated means shown working, including at a customer’s site, without evidence that the work continued. Pilot means a sustained trial at a named customer or site, backed by a stated trial period, a defined scope, operation reported after the start, or results. Deployed means regular real-world use, or actual public sale or public service; preorders, waitlists, invite-only pilots and test rides do not count. The words a company uses—“pilot”, “deployment”—never decide the stage on their own: each Pilot or Deployment names its site and what the sources report happened there. A pilot backed only by the company stays a pilot, and says so; later confirmation adds support without changing the stage.

Dates, freshness, and supersession

Each claim links to source records with publisher, URL, publication date when available, and a last checked date. Time-sensitive fields—price, lifecycle status, and availability—carry an as-of date. New evidence supersedes old claims instead of silently rewriting the record. A checked date says when we reviewed a source, not that we independently reproduced its result.

Lifecycle status

Announced means publicly introduced but not generally orderable. Preview means limited testing or early access. Preorder means orders or reservations are accepted. Active means the product or service is currently offered in at least one stated market. Limited means access is constrained by geography, program, inventory, or invitation. Paused means availability has temporarily stopped. Withdrawn means an announced offering was pulled before normal availability. Discontinued or sunset means sales or service have ended. Every label is scoped to the cited date and market.

Video, demonstrations, and testing

Manufacturer footage is labeled company demo. It can show that a demonstration occurred; it does not establish reliability, autonomy, safety, production readiness, or typical performance. Independently recorded testing is labeled with the tester and conditions when known. Media is withheld when public-use rights are not confirmed, even when it remains available on the company’s own page.

Commercial independence

Companies can buy exposure. They cannot buy the verdict.

Paid placement, sponsorship, affiliate relationships, review access, and supplied products must be disclosed near the exposure they fund or influence. They cannot change taxonomy, evidence labels, inclusion decisions, lifecycle status, or future scores. Editorial and commercial records remain separate. See Editorial Independence & Sponsorship and the Affiliate Disclosure.

Corrections and updates

Corrections preserve what changed, when, why, and which source supports the revision. Material errors are corrected promptly; clarifications and routine freshness updates are distinguished from corrections. See the public Corrections Policy for the submission process.