The $20 AI tool versus the $200,000 AI implementation
The $20 a month AI tool and the $200,000 AI implementation are often pitched for the same problem, and the honest answer about which one you need is usually boring.
The $200,000 version is justified when four things are true at once. The work depends on data only you have, and it lives in systems the cheap tool cannot reach. The output has to flow back into those systems without a person re-typing it. The mistakes are expensive enough that you need controls, logs and someone accountable. And the workflow around it is going to be redesigned, not just accelerated.
Take one of those away and the price stops making sense.
Without proprietary data, you are paying $200,000 for a wrapper around the same model the $20 tool uses. Without integration, you are paying for a very expensive copy-and-paste. Without real error costs, the controls are theatre. Without workflow redesign, the tool gets used by two enthusiasts and forgotten.
The uncomfortable version: most companies that buy the $200,000 version should have run the $20 version for three months first, in the hands of the people who do the work, and let it show them which of the four conditions actually holds.
That test costs $60 and a quarter. The implementation costs the $200,000 and the year, and it does not refund either if the conditions were never there.