---
title: "Survey Says: You'll swap the model, but everything you build around it is staying put"
description: "A Stacklok survey of 520 technical leaders at North American enterprises running LLMs or agents found that only 8% use a single model provider, while 25% use five or more. The hardest elements to migrate are integrations to internal systems or MCP servers (53%) and multi-step agent workflows (52%). Although 84% say avoiding lock-in is important, “ability to switch model providers without rebuilding” ranked sixth out of eight criteria, and “avoiding dependence on a single vendor” ranked last. Organizations using five or more model providers are more likely to build integrations (76% vs 42%), use open source agent frameworks (45% vs 22%), and prioritize portability (67% vs 47%). The survey also found that 80% would evaluate an open alternative to closed frontier architectures, and 88% expect to take more control of their AI architecture as they gain experience."
---

# Survey Says: You'll swap the model, but everything you build around it is staying put

[Stack Overflow](https://yomu.fyi/company/stack-overflow) · Craig McLuckie · Oct 21, 2026

**Type:** Explainer

## Summary

A Stacklok survey of 520 technical leaders at North American enterprises running LLMs or agents found that only 8% use a single model provider, while 25% use five or more. The hardest elements to migrate are integrations to internal systems or MCP servers (53%) and multi-step agent workflows (52%). Although 84% say avoiding lock-in is important, “ability to switch model providers without rebuilding” ranked sixth out of eight criteria, and “avoiding dependence on a single vendor” ranked last. Organizations using five or more model providers are more likely to build integrations (76% vs 42%), use open source agent frameworks (45% vs 22%), and prioritize portability (67% vs 47%). The survey also found that 80% would evaluate an open alternative to closed frontier architectures, and 88% expect to take more control of their AI architecture as they gain experience.

## Context

Stacklok surveyed 520 technical leaders at North American companies with more than 500 employees who run LLMs or agents in pilot or production, to understand concerns about vendor lock-in in AI.

## Approach / What changed

The survey asked about model provider usage, migration difficulty, criteria for AI stack decisions, and attitudes toward open architectures. The analysis compares organizations with five or more model providers to those with fewer.

## Takeaways

- Only 8% of enterprises use a single model provider; 25% use five or more, showing a multi-model landscape where model-level lock-in is already solved.
- The hardest elements to migrate are integrations to internal systems or MCP servers (53%) and multi-step agent workflows (52%), not the models themselves.
- Organizations using five or more model providers are more likely to build integrations (76% vs 42%), use open source agent frameworks (45% vs 22%), and prioritize portability (67% vs 47%).

## FAQ

### What is the hardest part of migrating between AI model providers?

Integrations to internal systems or MCP servers (53%) and multi-step agent workflows (52%) are the hardest elements to migrate, as they must be rebuilt when switching providers.

### How many model providers do enterprises typically use?

Only 8% use one provider; 25% use five or more, showing a multi-model world where lock-in at the model layer is already solved.

### What concerns do organizations have about closed AI platforms?

39% worry about product or API deprecation, and 37% about being unable to export agent state, memory, or evals, seeing their agent layer as an asset that can be held hostage.

**Tags:** [Agents](https://yomu.fyi/topic/agents), [AI](https://yomu.fyi/topic/ai), [MCP](https://yomu.fyi/topic/mcp), [Open Source](https://yomu.fyi/topic/open-source)

- Source: [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/10/21/survey-says-you-ll-swap-the-model-but-everything-you-build-around-it-is-staying-put)
- Source URL: https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/10/21/survey-says-you-ll-swap-the-model-but-everything-you-build-around-it-is-staying-put
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-21T15:00:20.961Z

[Read original post](https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/10/21/survey-says-you-ll-swap-the-model-but-everything-you-build-around-it-is-staying-put)