The concerns of those early adopters of artificial intelligence seemed to be a safe bet—AI's cost, complexity, and vendor lock-in held many back. But we are far past that.  

When discussing AI, the question is no longer "Should we?" It now becomes "We can't afford not to." AI tech has changed and is continuing to change incredibly fast, just like the early days of enterprise portals, when proprietary was new and still unproven. At that time, people waited, afraid to take the leap on a technology they didn't understand. Those who waited had time on their side... that's no longer the case.  

When the Chinese AI model named DeepSeek was introduced, it broke the barriers of cost and infrastructure that once made AI the domain of the privileged. At a cost of just $5.6 million to train versus billions by tech giants like ChatGPT, Gemini, or GrokAI is no longer the plaything of a handful—it's a tool any business can own and deploy. I'd argue that this event is considered the tipping point for AI models. 

AI has crossed into the next phase of product development. Now, the race is to see who can provide the cheapest model. Who can provide the most VALUE. Before it's too late, let's go over why the time to dive into AI is now and understand together why you can't afford to wait any longer.  

The Downfall of Traditional Software Development  

If we look at a  local bakery—not a major tech company—leveraging AI to analyze customer trends and increase sales, all without requiring a massive team of specialists. Or even a farmer using AI to analyze crop yield based on specific soil makeup year over year to predict the best time to plant. This is the new reality!   

Restrictive vendor contracts are no longer the only option for getting AI solutions made for your company. Now, you can develop, train, and deploy AI solutions on your own terms.  

A healthcare provider could create a patient risk model while ensuring security and compliance, all without being locked into a single cloud provider. Having to choose from one of the billion-dollar companies to create the tools you need at a snail's pace is a practice from the past that gets thrown out the window because of new AI models like DeepSeek or Grok3.  

AI is Getting Easier to Use 

Today, user-friendly platforms and intuitive interfaces streamline integrating AI into organizations, allowing even those with limited technical expertise to leverage AI capabilities. We are seeing people without college degrees in computer engineering develop prototypes for applications using basic prompts and drag-and-drop options built into AI software development tools. Watching a few YouTube tutorials for programs like Replit or Hostinger allows people to develop basic websites with built-in features filled with content in a few minutes!  

This "dumbing down" of AI tools can't be ignored. It means that huge swathes of people can jump into creating something they were once scared of making due to a difficult learning curve. We'll rapidly see new experts in these tools become competitive assets for organizations, and they'll become key players for companies worldwide. This is yet another reason why firms cannot wait any longer to integrate AI into their systems and tools.  

How You Can Start Implementing AI Into Your Organizations 

Start with finding redundancies in your daily processes. There may be a specific task that takes several different people multiple steps to complete. Could an AI tool reduce the process from 4 steps to 2? Over time, these efficiencies add up and will enable you to focus on enhancing other aspects of the business. 

For those already embracing AI in basic processes at your company. I'd challenge you to find more complicated tasks AI could make more efficient. You could even go as far as creating your own AI tool specialized to accomplish a specific task your business needs. 

We've seen too many firms struggle with being left behind in the past when new tools become available.  

Xennial took it upon ourselves to create new tools to help you quickly develop deliverables using AI and have introduced our own K-AI-XEN methodology. The rules are simple: quickly capture your business needs and transform them into digital products that your customers will love. We help take your ideas and turn them into a working prototype in minutes rather than months. If you're convinced that AI is the future and you don't want to get left behind, reach out to us here on our socials or directly at xennial.com