Every software vendor now sells an AI add-on, and every board asks why you'd build what you can subscribe to. Sometimes they're right. The framework below is how we answer — including when the answer costs us the project.
Buy the commodity
Meeting summaries, email drafting, generic coding assistance: buy these. They're horizontal, the vendors have scale advantages you'll never match, and there's no differentiation in doing them yourself.
Build at the differentiator
Where AI touches the process that wins you customers — your underwriting, your pricing, your service recovery — building wins on three axes: the workflow fits exactly, the data stays inside your boundary, and the capability compounds as yours instead of appearing in your competitor's subscription next quarter.
Do the lock-in math
Per-seat AI add-ons price like SaaS always has: modestly at pilot, painfully at scale. Multiply the add-on price by your five-year headcount, then compare it to building on API costs that have fallen every year since 2023. The spreadsheet usually surprises the room.
The hybrid most enterprises land on
Buy horizontal productivity. Build the two or three vertical systems where AI touches your edge. Put an abstraction layer under both so no vendor — including your builder — holds you hostage. That last clause is how you know a builder is serious.