The classic “build, partner, or buy” equation has undergone a fundamental shift.
AI has dramatically reduced the cost and time required to build. As a result, the threshold for choosing to partner or acquire has risen significantly. What once made sense as a partnership or acquisition decision can now often be achieved faster, cheaper, and with tighter integration by building in-house.
I’ve been through this firsthand. I acquired a company a few years ago, the process required at least six to complete and that’s assuming you actually find a suitable target and reach an agreement on both price and terms. From there, integration begins. You’re doing well if you can meaningfully commercialize the product within a year. More often, it takes closer to two.
Partnerships aren’t much easier. You rarely find a perfect match, which means compromise is inevitable. Then comes the challenge of structuring pricing in a way that preserves your margins while still delivering value to customers. It’s complex, time-consuming, and constraining.
Both of these options were preferable to building, though, which required a significant investment in both time and effort. An investment that typically resulted in, at least initially, a lower quality product. With AI, that’s not always the case anymore.
A recent example made this shift especially clear to me. We asked one of our product managers to explore potential partnerships in a new area we wanted to expand into. The options he brought back would have made the product too expensive for our customers and the solutions we looked at were bloated with features we didn’t really need. Instead, my co-founder spent two weeks building roughly half of the functionality himself, in his spare time. The result was impressive, and because it was built internally, it integrated seamlessly with our existing tech stack, libraries, and architecture.
That experience exposed me to a new truth: building is now often the default.
So when does partnering or acquiring still make sense?
1. DeepExpertise
It’s not enough to replicate a product. If your team lacks the expertise to operate, support, and sell it effectively, you’re unlikely to succeed. Some domains require years of accumulated knowledge that cannot be shortcut, even with the help of AI.
2. Risk
Entering unfamiliar territory carries real risk. For example, at Duda we’ve built the infrastructure and operational experience to host over a million sites. We understand web performance optimization, compliance requirements like GDPR and accessibility, and security challenges such as mitigating DDoS attacks. Companies entering this space without that expertise expose their customers to significant financial and legal risks. In other, more scrutinized industries, like financial services or payment processing, the risk is even greater.
3. Brand
If your brand lacks credibility in a new category, partnering with or acquiring an established player can accelerate trust and adoption in ways that building alone cannot.
4. Customer Base
Partnerships and acquisitions can provide immediate access to a customer base that would be difficult or slow to acquire organically.
AI hasn’t eliminated the need to partner or buy, but it has certainly changed the calculus. Building is no longer the expensive, slow option. On the contrary, in many circumstances it’s the fastest path forward.
That means partnerships and acquisitions must clear a much higher bar, reserved for cases where expertise, risk, brand, or distribution truly justify it.
About Itai
Itai Sadan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Duda, a professional website builder for agencies and SaaS platforms. Under Itai’s leadership, Duda rapidly expanded its product suite with cutting-edge, AI-powered tools that help web professionals create beautiful, conversion-driving websites at scale.
