„Should we build AI ourselves?“ is not a technology question. It is the same build-buy-partner decision as ever, only that this time everyone pretends no one has ever calculated it.
In most cases the answer is buy, but a buy with an intermediate layer. Whoever has no truly good reasons should not host, train and build a by-now largely standardized service like AI themselves. It is too fragmented, too expensive, too laborious. The productive initial load you want barrier-free from an established provider that really can do it. About building your own, you can think after some years of use, when there are tangible advantages, or in parallel as a small research project, in case something breaks away on the market.
The layer against lock-in
What is decisive is a layer that enables a provider switch when it becomes necessary. Whoever builds themselves into provider-specific corporate infrastructure locks themselves in for years. So keep all business models and optimization projects provider-agnostic and retain the free choice among several providers. If one has a unique feature you absolutely need, then at least decouple as far as possible and look for alternatives in parallel.
The most common board error is to take AI for a research grail to be protected. It is not. AI will be available like server racks or electric motors, there are many of them, the subtleties are in the detail. Whoever is not, by chance, in the automotive industry does not build their own motor for the company cars either. In critical industries you may switch from the well-secured public cloud to operation without provider access. But really building your own rarely pays off.
The one honest number
The decision becomes honest at one number: the internal effort. Server and training costs anyone can quote you, and even those will floor you. But estimating the need for specialist staff realistically is hard to impossible for a newcomer, finding the staff at all even more so, in a time of absurd transfer fees for top experts. Calculate this number before you say „build our own“. Most of the time it answers the question by itself.