Markets
Test your AI exit route before the renewal date
A useful export includes the records and operating context needed to continue work elsewhere.
Zocri · 2 min read · Sources checked
Switching cost is more than a cancellation fee
The OECD's 2026 AI markets brief identifies switching costs as a competition concern. It does not establish whether any named application is portable. For a small business, the relevant cost includes retrieving records, preserving their meaning and teaching staff to continue the process elsewhere.
A supplier may offer an export button while the useful context remains tied to its interface. Customer notes, approval history and links between records can matter as much as the raw fields. Test the exit route while the service is working and the supplier is still motivated to help.
Export one complete working example
Choose an ordinary completed job and an unfinished one. Retrieve the relevant records and have a colleague explain their state without opening the original application. Can they identify what the customer requested, what was approved and what remains to do?
This is a practical continuity check, not a requirement to migrate immediately. It reveals the information the business would need if a price change or service problem later made switching worthwhile.
Count process reconstruction
List the instructions, templates and decision rules staff would need to recreate. Keep business-owned descriptions in an understandable form. If the process exists only as a series of private conversations with an assistant, reconstructing it may become a substantial part of the move.
Include integrations and external services in the estimate. Replacing the visible interface may leave the business with the same underlying dependency or create new transfer work.
Test a modest alternative
Where proportionate, run the exported example through a simple alternative process. A spreadsheet and a manual queue may be enough to test whether records are usable. The exercise does not need to prove that another product is better; it needs to establish that the business can understand and continue its work.
Record missing fields and ambiguous states while the original context remains available to resolve them.
Use the result in the buying decision
Compare the service's ongoing benefit with both its recurring cost and the practical cost of leaving. A valuable product can justify some switching effort, but that effort should be known rather than discovered under pressure at renewal.
This exit test is our procurement recommendation. The OECD source explains the competitive significance of switching costs, while the owner's own record-recovery exercise establishes the concrete dependency. Portability is useful when it preserves a real choice, not merely when a contract or feature list says an export exists.