Custom AI apps and enterprise software
Roll your own AI app, or keep using the Salesforce big boys?
Big platforms are valuable when the workflow belongs inside the system of record. Custom AI apps and integrations make sense when the work is specific, repeated, and too important to live as a workaround.
Do not replace the system of record just to use AI.
Salesforce, HubSpot, ServiceNow, NetSuite, and similar platforms often remain the right place for customer records, tickets, deals, accounts, and reporting. If the workflow is already well represented there, the better move may be to extend the platform with AI-assisted steps instead of rebuilding the foundation.
Keep the platform for the records. Stop making people do manual work around it.
Build custom when the workflow is the product.
A custom app becomes more attractive when the workflow is highly specific to your business, repeated by many people, customer-facing, permission-sensitive, or awkward to express inside a large platform. In those cases, the platform may still store the record, while the custom app handles the day-to-day work.
This is especially true when users need a simpler screen, AI-generated drafts, document review, approval flows, exception handling, or reporting that cuts across multiple systems.
Stay in-platform
Standard process, existing users, simple fields, native reporting.
Extend with AI
Summaries, drafting, classification, routing, record enrichment.
Build custom
Unique workflow, focused UI, cross-system logic, customer experience.
Keep the CRM. Fix the work around it.
A custom layer can read the existing records, prepare the work, and write approved updates back without replacing the system underneath it.