AI deployment: to host or not to host?

So you’ve built your AI application prototype. You used your own local GPU to run the AI model, or just used the free AI Studio tier to power your clever program. The app is ready, the world is ready, time to deploy your production instance! In the case of traditional, non-AI powered apps and services, the choice of deployment platform is based on personal preference, what you are familiar with, how much control over fine details you want to have etc. Cost is usually not the most important factor, as for a new service, that’s just going to start gaining a userbase, the first usage bills won’t be that high anyway. The situation is different when it comes to running services that make use of AI. Here, you need to make two separate decisions. First is how to deploy your application, this is the same as for a vanilla non-AI app. Second is how you are going to provision the AI capabilities. This second decision will most likely be responsible for a big chunk of your bill and it shouldn’t be