The Hard Truth About Internal Builds
A lot of businesses try to build AI in-house. On paper, it looks like control. In practice, it’s often slow, expensive, and risky.
Recent research shows that external partnerships are deployed into production at nearly twice the rate of internal builds. Why? Because most internal teams don’t have the time, budget, or experience to make it across the finish line.
Internal Build vs. Studio98 Partnership
Here’s what the reality looks like for SMBs:
| Internal Build | Studio98 Partnership |
| Hire or retrain a team of data scientists, engineers, and project managers. | 100% of our staff has already been trained in AI — from CEO to support reps. |
| Spend 6–12 months experimenting with pilots that rarely go live. | We bring AI agents live in 14 days and measure ROI in 30 days. |
| Shoulder all the risk of cost overruns and failed projects. | We share the risk: 125% ROI guarantee or your money back. |
| Build from scratch without proven playbooks. | 18 years of SaaS design, build, and support with over 65,000 SMB software users helped. |
| Hope the pilot works out. | Documented results — from recruiting agents to inbound call centers — proving hard-dollar savings. |
Why This Matters Now
The clock is ticking for SMBs. Competitors who find real AI gains will lower costs, move faster, and serve customers better.
But the safe bet isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel in-house. The safe bet is partnering with a team that’s already proven how to get across the divide.
Where Studio98 Fits
We’ve seen the cost of hype and the risk of waiting too long. That’s why we’ve built S98.ai to help SMBs cut through both.
- We train your people.
- We launch one agent at a time.
- We measure in dollars, not theory.
- We share the risk with you.
No experiments that drag on. No fluff. Just proof.
Our 30-Day ROI Guarantee
If your Performance Dashboard doesn’t show hard-dollar cash gains by Day 30, you get a 125% refund. No fine print. No “time saved” fluff. Just dollars back.
We don’t do theory. We do proof.