Does it need internet? Our people work in places with no signal.

This question comes from people who work in vans, on sites, in plant rooms and in buildings with thick walls. It is asked far too rarely and ignored far too often.

The honest answer

It depends what the thing does, and it needs deciding at the start rather than discovered at go-live.

Anything that needs a live AI response needs a connection at that moment. There is no way around that.

Anything that is recording information, looking something up, or working through a job can be built to work offline and sync when signal returns. This costs more to build and it is usually worth it.

Where it really matters

I have built a training package that ships as a single offline portable file precisely because it gets presented in meeting rooms where the guest wifi cannot be relied on. No install, no network, works from a stick.

That constraint shaped the whole build, and it was the right call. Software that fails in the room is worse than a PowerPoint that works.

The question to ask yourself

Where will this actually be used, physically, by the person using it? Standing up or sitting down? On a phone with gloves on? In a basement?

I have seen good systems fail because they were designed for a desk and used on a ladder. That is a design failure, not a user failure.