When a business pays for an AI system it is paying for several things at once, and each can be owned by a different party: the code, the prompts and instructions, the evaluation set, the indexes built from its documents, the data the system produces, and the model underneath. Products, platforms and tailored builds answer the ownership question differently, and the differences decide what happens when the price changes, the vendor pivots, or the business wants to move.
The layers
| Layer | Product | Platform (configured assistants) | Tailored build |
|---|---|---|---|
| The model | Vendor’s | Vendor’s | Vendor’s, swappable |
| The application code | Vendor’s | Vendor’s | Yours |
| Prompts and instructions | Vendor’s | Yours, inside their platform | Yours |
| Indexes of your documents | In their service | In their service | Yours, in your environment |
| Evaluation set | Usually none | Usually none | Yours |
| Outputs | Yours, per terms | Yours, per terms | Yours |
| Your data for training | Check the tier | Check the tier | Never, by design |
What ownership buys you
Portability. A build whose code, prompts, indexes and evaluation set are yours can change model when a better or cheaper one appears, because the framework is model-agnostic and the change is configuration. A product cannot; you move when it moves.
Price stability. No per-seat fee that rises with adoption, no licence that reprices at renewal. A managed service to run it, if you want one, is a known monthly cost for defined work.
Continuity. If the supplier disappears, you have the system, the documentation and the evaluation set. If a product’s vendor disappears, you have a login that stops working.
Evidence. The evaluation set is the record of what the system does and how well. It is what an auditor, a regulator or a customer asks for, and it should be yours.
Where products are still right
At the base of the Opportunity Pyramid: copilots, assistants, enterprise search, the standard functional tools. Nobody should own a meeting summariser. Ownership matters where the knowledge is yours and the workflow is yours, which is the territory of a tailored build.
Questions to ask before signing
- Who owns the application code, and is it delivered with the system?
- Who owns the prompts and instructions, and can we read them?
- Where do the indexes of our documents live, and can we take them?
- Is there an evaluation set, and is it ours?
- Can the underlying model be changed without a rebuild?
- Under what tier and terms is our data processed, and is it ever used for training?
- What happens on exit: export, deletion, handover?
Our position
What we build is yours: code, prompts, indexes in your environment, the evaluation set and the documentation, with no licence and no per-seat fee, and a handover or a managed service at the end, your choice. The frameworks underneath are model-agnostic by design. That is described under AI frameworks and agent build, and the honest version of the product answer is in every roadmap we write.