It's easy to say changing an API key is simple, but we need to ask if a team would re-enter the market for a new AI provider if they hadn't already poured significant time into integrating the current one.
Even with a supposedly low-friction API, there are always hidden investments in custom reports, staff training, and compliance checks that become a real sunk cost.
Saying it's just a financial calculation ignores the actual effort needed to dispose of the old setup and get the new one running smoothly.
For example, if your HR team has built a whole internal workflow around an AI that drafts job descriptions, swapping that AI means retraining everyone, updating internal guides, and re-validating the new AI's output, not just changing a line of code.