Locked, stocked, and losing budget: AI vendor lock-in bites back
Execs in the C-suite thought they could swap models in a week. They were hallucinating Opinion The days when you could jump from one frontier AI model to another at the drop of a hat are going away as vendor lock-in starts to kick in, and prices increase.…
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AI + ML 2 Locked, stocked, and losing budget: AI vendor lock-in bites back 2 Execs in the C-suite thought they could swap models in a week. They were hallucinating Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols Tue 28 Apr 2026 // 09:15 UTC Opinion The days when you could jump from one frontier AI model to another at the drop of a hat are going away as vendor lock-in starts to kick in, and prices increase. Once upon a time, say last month, people thought nothing of jumping from one AI frontier model to another. One week, the hottest AI model was Gemini 3.1 Pro, then it was Claude 4.6, now, maybe, it's GPT-5.5. Next month? Who knows. That's fine for Joe Amateur Programmer, but for Janet Pro Programmer, it's another story. Tokenmaxxing isn't an AI strategy READ MORE You see, enterprise AI buyers face two converging problems. First, it's proving much harder to switch between AI vendors than people expected. At the same time, AI vendors are pushing through price increases that are reshaping software economics. We always knew this would happen. AI prices have been loss leaders for years now, and the bills are finally coming due. A recent survey by AI orchestration platform provider Zapier of 542 US executives with active AI vendor contracts, found that nearly 90 percent believed they could switch AI vendors within four weeks, and 41 percent said they could do it in just 2–5 business days. Now who's hallucinating? I've long thought that behind all the lip service company brass gives AI, most senior executives are completely clueless about what AI is and how to deploy it. This kind of delusional thinking is proof. <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afB_nR8cPep__c9M4s13RwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afB_nR8cPep__c9M4s13RwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0" alt=""> </a> According to Zapier's report, only 42 percent of organizations that attempted to migrate between AI platforms report that it went smoothly. The remaining 58 percent? They say the process either failed outright or required significantly more effort than expected. Really. Who'd have thought it? <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afB_nR8cPep__c9M4s13RwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afB_nR8cPep__c9M4s13RwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D426raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" alt=""> </a> <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33afB_nR8cPep__c9M4s13RwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img…
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