When a 12‑person boutique fashion label in Bologna launched a GPT‑4‑powered catalog generator on March 3, 2026, its sales jumped 27 % in just two weeks, shattering the regional benchmark of 8 % for AI pilots. Why the traditional AI due‑diligence playbook is a cost trap for SMBs The hidden $9,800 per‑project compliance tax Most Italian SMBs still treat AI due‑diligence as a one‑off consultancy gig. A typical external audit costs €8,200 in fees, €1,200 in legal review, and another €600 for documentation tooling – roughly $9,800 per project. That “tax” eats up 18 % of the total AI budget for a 12‑person team, leaving little room for iteration. How continuous compliance pipelines cut that to $2,300 Instead of a three‑month, $9,800 audit, teams that bake policy checks into their CI/CD pipelines spend on average €2,050 on tooling (static linters, policy‑as‑code libraries) and €250 on cloud‑based risk scoring per model release. That’s a 76 % reduction in compliance spend.…