WorkThe story, in brief
Locked, stocked, and losing budget: AI vendor lock-in bites back
NOBODY TALKING: Everyone chases the latest model. Nobody is talking about the $millions trapped in vendor lock-in contracts.
The KeyNews take
Why it matters
As enterprises scale AI deployments, switching costs and contractual lock-in are becoming a hidden tax on AI budgets—forcing C-suite teams to justify sunk costs and rethink model selection strategy.
The key facts
4 to knowC-suite expectations: model swaps possible in ~1 week (reality: significantly longer)
Vendor lock-in emerging as material budget risk for enterprise AI programs
Switching costs and contractual constraints limiting model portability
Published Apr 28 2026 — suggests real enterprise pain point at scale
Go to the source
The Register AI/MLtheregister.com
Publisher excerpt: Execs in the C-suite thought they could swap models in a week. They were hallucinating