AI TRENDS | Marketers Weigh Build Versus Buy as AI Reshapes Software Choices

Marketing teams are facing a new question in the AI era: which work should they handle in-house, and which should remain outsourced to external vendors such as ad agencies and data service providers. According to Sina Finance, speakers at the second day of yesterday's Leadership Institute technology summit said the choice depends on each company's core strengths. Jonathan Lyle, co-founder and general partner at New York venture firm Work-Bench, said the current market can be summed up this way: buy to keep basic operations running, and build in-house to create differentiation. He added that many mature off-the-shelf software products can meet 80% to 90% of business needs. Lyle said internal IT teams still need to handle the last mile, including identifying and connecting the data they need and assessing how systems actually perform. He also addressed the idea that SaaS vendors could be disrupted by customers and startups with strong AI capabilities, saying the picture is also mixed. He said startups trying to fully replace CRM systems would face difficulties, although new capabilities are emerging in sales and marketing. Lyle said Work-Bench invested in Petra Labs, which is rethinking AI engine optimization. He said the company's approach can go deep inside enterprises, extract and integrate data stored in Snowflake, Databricks, and other systems, and support marketing attribution analysis. Lyle said the build-versus-buy decision also depends on each company's priorities. Some companies will put security first and choose to build in-house, while others will focus on marketing operations.