AI Vocabulary · 06 Own Your AI
What is Vendor Lock-in?
When switching to another AI provider becomes so costly or painful that you effectively can't.
Vendor lock-in happens gradually. Your prompts are tuned to one model, your knowledge sits in one app's format, your workflows depend on features only one provider offers, and your team only knows one tool. Then prices rise, terms change or a model is retired, and moving away would cost months.
In AI the risk is real because the market moves fast: models are updated, renamed or discontinued, and pricing and data policies change.
Why it matters for you
Lock-in reduces your negotiating power and your options exactly when you need them. A little planning early costs far less than an emergency migration later.
Own it
Keep your data and knowledge in formats you control. Use open standards like MCP where possible. Build on an API through a layer you can repoint. And test at least one alternative, for example an open-weight model, for your key use case, so you know switching is possible.
Where it comes from
The idea of lock-in comes from economics. Paul David's 1985 essay on the QWERTY keyboard and W. Brian Arthur's 1989 work on increasing returns showed how early choices can trap entire markets, even when better options exist. Software and cloud made it an everyday business risk, from operating systems to file formats. Wikipedia: Vendor lock-in
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