Even as models get easier to swap, the work that surrounds them is not. Developers already move among Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, and local models with less ceremony than vendors would like. At the API layer, substitution is getting easier, too. Not effortless or free, but easier than replacing the workflow machinery around the model.
That is the part enterprise buyers may be underestimating. Yes, open standards, better APIs, and improving model parity are weakening one form of lock-in, but they are strengthening another. The model call is getting easier to replace; the surrounding workflow, governance, and operating model are not.
Lock-in didn’t disappear. It moved
Greyhound Research’s Sanchit Vir Gogia puts it this way, “Lock-in is not going away. It is relocating. At the model level, substitution is becoming easier.” He continues, “At the orchestration level, however, substitution remains difficult. Once your workflows, controls, identity layers, and governance structures are built around a particular system, changing that system is not a small task.”
That diagnosis reveals the clearest clue as to why vendors are pouring billions into workflow integration: New AI tech isn’t fitting seamlessly enough with old enterprise workflows. People can fix that.
