Stay vendor-portable — never depend on a single AI company

🎯 Why it matters

AI tech moves fast; each vendor has different strengths. Lock-in to one = at least 1 vendor incident per 5 years (50% price hike, API outage, TOS change, model deprecation). One incident = 1 week paralyzed + 10-20% client churn. Writing abstraction layer once = permanent insurance.

📊 ROI highlights

• One-time abstraction layer ≈ 1 week investment = permanent insurance
• Vendor switching: <1 hr (with layer) vs days (without)
• Negotiating power: backup options = negotiating room

⚠️ Common mistakes

• Calling SDK directly — hardcoding vendor-specific code
• Never drilling second vendor — discover workflow broken only when incident hits
• Assuming same prompt works identical across vendors — it does not

✅ Action checklist

• This week: write thin abstraction layer (wrap input/output)
• This month: open accounts at 2 vendors (Claude + GPT or add Gemini)
• Monthly: 1 week using second vendor for critical workflow
• Quarterly: try a third vendor (DeepSeek / Grok) test capability