Don't Build Your Own AI (Unless You Have To)

Are you trying to figure out if your team should build an AI model from scratch or integrate an off-the-shelf solution? You aren’t alone.

In this episode of the MongoDB Podcast, Shane McAlister sits down with Akshaya Murthy, Director of AI Transformation at Zendesk, to decode the maze of building enterprise AI products. They dive into why integrating is often the winning move for speed-to-market, the hidden costs of custom models, and why bad data will break even the most perfect transformer model.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• The Build vs. Buy Calculus: Why lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and rapid deployment favor integration for most enterprises.

  
  

• Spotting "AI Washing": How to avoid vendor buzzword salads and focus on actual problem-solving and ROI.

  
  

• Architectural Must-Haves: Why your AI stack needs modular API layers, model hot-swapping, and CI/CD pipelines just like your standard code.

  
  

• The "Garbage In, Hype Out" Rule: Why a solid data strategy and a centralized single source of truth are non-negotiable.

  
  

Ready to stop experimenting and start delivering real AI value? Tune in now.