I once watched a founder clear a model for production from his phone in an airport lounge. It worked, but only because his compliance setup was ten small habits with icons. Here is the full set, in the order you will actually reach for them.
Start with two AI assistants. The ChatGPT app, Claude, Copilot, Gemini: pick the two you like. Their job is plain-English first reads of license clauses. Fast, usually right, never the final word.
Next, a mobile reference for license texts. The actual Apache 2.0, MIT, and Llama Community License, searchable on your phone. A mobile reference app for AI model licenses beats a PDF in a browser tab every single time.
Then the operational ones. A checklist app running your five-minute license review: grant, thresholds, restrictions, attribution, version. Same checks, every model, no skipping. A notes app holding your license log: model, version, license, date checked, source link. One note per model. This is the artifact diligence asks for, and it is the one founders reconstruct from memory at the worst possible moment.
A document scanner, so you can save the license file as it existed the day you downloaded the weights. Dated evidence beats memory. An e-signature app for your AI policy, because the policy means nothing until the team has actually signed it. Make signing frictionless.
And a bookmark to an open source AI license database search tool that someone keeps current. Your phone apps handle triage; the database handles truth.
Run any license compliance audit SaaS evaluation against this list: if a tool cannot feed your log, it is a toy. Keep the AI policy for startups next to the log, not in a different universe. I maintain the database side of this stack at localaitools.fyi: 200 models compared, plus commercial-use clearance reports when you want it in writing.