A practical decision.
USE AN EXISTING SERVICE WHEN
The task is common: writing, summarising, transcription, translation, classification
Speed matters more than customisation You lack specialist staff
That covers most small and medium businesses.
FINE-TUNE OR BUILD WHEN
You have a genuinely specific requirement no general tool addresses You have data nobody else has Volume makes per-use cost significant Confidentiality prevents using a hosted service
WHAT BUILDING ACTUALLY REQUIRES
Data, in quantity and quality Specialist staff Infrastructure Ongoing maintenance
The maintenance is the part people underestimate.
THE HONEST ASSESSMENT FOR MOST BUSINESSES
Use existing tools well. A well-constructed prompt against a good general model solves more business problems than a custom model most organisations could build.
THE MIDDLE PATH
Retrieval over your own documents, using a general model.
That gives you domain-specific capability without training anything.
WHERE TO START
Solve one real problem with an existing tool. Then reassess.
