Would we re-enter a contract with a new AI provider if we had already poured so much effort into customisation with the current one? The notion that developers can just "quickly redirect API calls" when AI performance shifts often overlooks the sunk investment in existing integrations and fine-tuned prompts.
It's easy to say a company should just walk away from a system, but if you've spent months tailoring an AI chatbot for Belgian customer service—handling specific linguistic nuances and local regulations—that’s not a low-cost switch.
We see this constantly in our workplaces; the initial investment in a deeply embedded system makes leaving it behind far more complex than just finding a cheaper alternative, even if the new one promises a slight bump in performance.