A researcher checks a generated synthesis against her own interview notes while a stack of vendor contracts sits unopened at the edge of her desk.Practitioners know what good output looks like and should own the final call, with operations handling the plumbing.Picture a researcher who drops 12 interview transcripts into a synthesis tool and gets a tidy theme and quote. She ran six of those interviews, so she knows within a minute nobody said it.The manager who negotiated the contract wouldn’t have caught it, because some people lack the hands-on experience that judgment takes.Design and research operations grew up handling licenses, consent forms, and vendor contracts. When artificial intelligence tools arrived, buying them became deciding what they’re for.That’s backwards, because this isn’t like choosing Figma or other tools, where the same input gave the same output and a...