Switching between AI tools is getting expensive—vendor lock-in is the next surprise cost for businesses

The article warns that moving from one AI platform (like OpenAI's ChatGPT) to another (like Claude or Gemini) will involve hidden costs beyond just subscription fees—including retraining staff on new interfaces, rewriting custom workflows, and rebuilding integrations with existing business software.

Unlike switching between email providers or cloud storage services, AI tools embed themselves into how teams work: custom prompts, fine-tuned models, and chains of AI-powered tasks all become worthless if you change providers, making it expensive and time-consuming to port your work.

For business professionals and decision-makers, this means choosing an AI platform today is more like choosing an operating system than choosing a spreadsheet tool—the switching cost is high enough that you'll likely be stuck with your first choice for years, even if a better tool launches next month.