How AI Is Unraveling 30 Years of Platform Lock-In
You bought best-of-breed tools for a reason. Salesforce is the gold standard for sales. HubSpot for marketing because it just works. Mailchimp for email because their automation is unmatched. Google Analytics for insights because, well, it's Google Analytics.
Each one was chosen carefully.
But here's the catch: they don't talk to each other.
So what happens? Sally from sales knows a lead downloaded three whitepapers this week, but she has no clue they've been ignoring every email for the past month. Mike from marketing can see his campaign got great open rates, but he has zero idea if any of those opens actually turned into deals.
Your teams spend hours stitching together spreadsheets, building brittle Zapier chains that break every other week, or—worse—just operating in silos and hoping for the best.
Meanwhile, the big platforms sit back and wait. They know something you're starting to suspect: the pain of fragmentation will eventually push you to consolidate into their ecosystem. Not because it's better, but because it's easier.
And just like that, they've won.
Why This Keeps Happening
Here's the thing nobody talks about: This isn't a glitch in the system. It's how the system was designed to work.
The internet we have today was built on 1990s architecture with 2000s business models. Apps weren't designed to play nice with each other. They were designed to capture and hold your data. It's like building a house where every room has a different key, and the locksmith gets a cut every time you need to move between rooms.
That's why:
Marketing celebrates open rates but can't see pipeline impact
Sales sees leads but not the campaign touchpoints that created them
Analytics delivers reports nobody fully trusts because half the data is still locked away in other tools
Everyone ends up building their janky workarounds with spreadsheets
So you do what everyone eventually does: you give up and migrate to one giant platform: your CRM, email, calendar, docs, analytics—all under one roof. Integration pain solved... not the best in class for each discipline, but at the cost of independence.
Once you're in their ecosystem, you're in. Your data becomes their moat, and switching costs become astronomical and difficult.
The Plot Twist that Changes Everything: AI can Break this Cycle
AI agents don't care if your apps speak different languages or were built by competing companies. They can pull data, reconcile differences, and orchestrate actions across systems in ways humans (and those brittle API integrations) never could.
Picture this: You walk in tomorrow morning, and your AI agent has already been working overnight like some digital Swiss Army knife, seamlessly moving between all your chosen tools.
We're talking about:
Sales teams who wake up to updated lead scores, unified activity logs, and AI-drafted call notes—all sourced from your entire tech stack, not just what lives in your CRM.
Marketing teams who can finally connect campaigns to actual revenue across platforms (not just the ones their main provider controls), and see which content pieces are driving your highest-value customers.
Operations leaders who stop chasing CSV exports and start seeing the big picture in real time, with insights that span every tool in your arsenal.
For the first time in many years, you can have proper integration without surrendering control.
Why Forklift Foods Leans Into This Future
Look, we get it. The big platforms aren't evil—they're just playing the game by the rules that existed. But those rules are changing.
At Forklift Foods Partners, we believe companies deserve better than having to choose between the tools that work best and the integration they need. That's why we’re designing AI agents that let your carefully chosen tools work together as if they were built by the same team, without forcing you to abandon them for "good enough" all-in-one platforms.
Our approach is pretty straightforward:
We map where your data gets stuck between your chosen tools
We deploy AI agents that orchestrate workflows across your entire stack
We keep you in control—no lock-in, no ecosystem tax, no forcing you to rebuild processes around someone else's limitations
The result? Your team stops playing digital detective with spreadsheets and starts selling and marketing. You get all the benefits of integration without giving up the specialized tools you chose for good reasons.
The Big Question That Changes Everything
The aggregators ate the internet because, for decades, they were the only ones offering real integration.
That excuse no longer exists.
AI gives you a genuine alternative: integration without compromise. You can keep the tools that work best for your business AND get them to work together seamlessly.
The era of choosing between best-of-breed tools and integrated experiences is ending. The question isn't whether this will happen—it's whether you'll be among the first to break free from the old forced choice, or whether you'll keep accepting the trade-offs that made sense in the 1990s but don't have to define your business in 2025.
Ready to see what's possible when your carefully chosen tools finally start working together? Let's talk about building you an AI-powered system that respects both your independence and your intelligence.
Because honestly? You picked those tools for good reasons. It's time technology worked with your choices, not against them.
Sources: This post draws insights from Geoffrey Litt and co-authors' paper "Malleable Software in the Age of AI," which explores how artificial intelligence enables more flexible, personalized software experiences. Geoffrey Litt, Josh Horowitz, Peter van Hardenberg, and Todd Matthews. 2025. Malleable Software: Restoring User Agency in a World of Locked-Down Apps. Ink & Switch. https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software/.