Vendor lock-in represents one of the most underestimated economic risks in enterprise AI adoption, with organizations discovering the true costs only when strategic pivots become necessary. This paper provides a comprehensive economic analysis of AI vendor lock-in, examining the mechanisms that create dependency, quantifying switching costs across major platforms (2.3x to 5.7x original implementation), and developing frameworks for optimal platform selection including the Vendor Dependency Index (VDI).
Oleh Ivchenko (Thu,) studied this question.