The Margin Curve of Multi-Model AI Infrastructure

Agencies that treat AI infrastructure as a single-provider contract are quietly pricing their own lock-in into every retainer. The providers control the meter, the gate, and the referee, so a routine pricing or guardrail change lands as an unbudgeted delivery cost. Building a routing layer across two or three model providers converts that risk into a margin lever: the same client feature can be re-pointed to a cheaper or faster model without a rebuild.