Harmonic Security analysed 22.4 million AI prompts across enterprises and found 665 distinct tools in use. ChatGPT alone caused 71.2% of data exposures. Standardizing on one vendor is not about picking favourites. It is about making the approved option so good that nobody bothers looking elsewhere.
Not every vendor will hand over their SOC 2 report. Some gate it behind enterprise tiers, some do not have one, and some just ignore the request. Your auditor still expects you to manage vendor risk. Here is the workaround that actually satisfies the CC9.2 criteria.
85 percent of companies miss their AI cost forecasts by more than 10 percent, and the cheapest AI contract often becomes the most expensive. Flexible terms around usage scaling, data portability, and exit rights matter more than base pricing. What Michael Porter called switching costs are the real danger in AI vendor lock-in.