The AI Exit Strategy: How Companies Can Avoid Vendor Lock-In Before It’s Too Late

This isn’t a hypothetical. In May 2025, Builder.ai — a Microsoft-backed startup once valued at $1.5 billion — collapsed into insolvency after a creditor seized nearly all of its remaining cash, leaving customers scrambling to recover their data and rebuild workflows overnight. Companies that had wired the platform into core operations discovered, too late, that they had no real exit plan. That single event has become a cautionary tale across boardrooms, and for good reason: it proved that even a well-funded, high-profile AI vendor can disappear almost without warning.