Own the layer

There is a difference between using a tool and depending on one. A SaaS subscription is fine for a feature. It is a bad place to keep the intelligence layer your operation depends on, because the moment it runs your business you have handed someone else the pricing power, the data, and the off switch.

What ownership actually means

• The code and prompts live in a repository you control.
• The data and any fine-tuned model sit in your cloud account.
• There is no per-seat licence on the thing doing the work.
• If we walked away tomorrow, it keeps running.

This is not ideology, it is risk management. You already own your systems and your data. The intelligence layer that sits on top of them should be owned the same way.