Discovery call: a distributor wants AI for its quotes
AnthropicCustomer role-playdiscovery, 60 minutes
45 minwith the COO
Format reported for Anthropic Forward Deployed Engineer and Applied AI Engineer interviews (4 independent sources, latest Jul 2026). Our case is original.
The prompt
The candidate's brief:
You are an applied AI architect. Ridgeline Supply (fictional), a building-materials distributor with 46 branches, booked a call. Its COO, Dana Okafor, wrote in the booking form: "We want an AI assistant for our quoting team." You have 45 minutes with Dana. There is no whiteboard and no slides. Run the first discovery call, and end it with a recap, one success metric, a pilot scope and a next step. After the call, the interviewer debriefs you for 15 minutes.
Your answer
Write the eight questions you most need answered before you would propose anything, and the one sentence you will use to close the call. Practise with a partner who reads the hidden brief and nothing else.
Compare your answer
A weak, a good and a great answer, side by side, then the guide, the follow-ups and the rubric.
