Small and Mid-sized AI companies selling to enterprise software providers (often called ISVs) are on the brink of a major shift—either offer a self-hosted deployment option or risk losing huge contracts. In fact, this transition is already underway.
Many smaller AI companies are developing their own models, while others rely on paid or open-source APIs to quickly bring products to market without assembling an in-house AI development team. While options like ChatGPT and Claude have been around for a while, DeepSeek is rapidly gaining traction. Open-source and developed with significantly lower investment than ChatGPT, DeepSeek is fueling claims that any company can now become an AI company at a fraction of the cost.
However, alongside this excitement, security experts are raising alarms about data privacy. In everyday life, people may not worry about the AI models they use storing questions about dinner ideas or weekend plans. But using these tools for business-related tasks? That’s where security concerns escalate.
For smaller AI companies looking to sell into the enterprise software space—whether using an open-source API or proprietary technology—offering a self-hosted (customer-managed) version of your application will soon be non-negotiable for security-conscious ISVs. This is going to be especially true if you’re selling to enterprises in the finance or healthcare spaces, where working with PII (personally identifiable information) is common. When AI applications are self-hosted, organizations maintain full control over their data. The AI provider cannot use it to train other models, sell it to third parties, or—perhaps most critically—compromise it in the event of a security breach.
Yet, enabling customers to self-host your AI application presents challenges. It requires significant setup effort, and building self-hosted capabilities diverts development resources from improving core functionality. This is where Replicated steps in. Trusted by AI companies like Cohere, H20.ai, Datastax, ProtectAI, and Writer, Replicated simplifies the entire self-hosting process.
How Replicated Helps AI Companies Scale
Replicated is a software distribution platform designed to help enterprise AI companies package, distribute, and manage Kubernetes-based applications in self-hosted environments. It streamlines deployment across various customer infrastructures, making it easier to scale securely.
From initial release to customer installation and ongoing deployment insights, the Replicated Software Distribution Platform helps AI companies serve hundreds or even thousands of enterprise customers. We’ve tackled the hardest challenges of on-prem software distribution and wrapped them into a seamless platform.
If you're an AI company looking to sell into enterprise environments—or already doing so—reach out to us. We’ll help you develop a self-hosted deployment strategy so you can stay focused on building your AI application.