Why Investing in a Horizontal AI Platform is Your Best Move in Today's Uncertain Economic Climate
Apr 3, 2025
Let's talk about what's happening right now. The markets are in turmoil.
Just today (April 3, 2025), the S&P 500 plunged nearly 5% and the Dow dropped more than 1,600 points—the worst day for stocks since 2020. Why? President Trump's sweeping tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, China, and other trading partners have sent shockwaves through the global economy.
For business leaders, this volatility creates an urgent question: How do you protect your company while positioning it for future success? AI is the answer, but how you approach it is critically important—and I believe the smart answer lies in horizontal AI platforms like elvex that boost efficiency across your entire organization.
There are two dimensions to this horizontality:
What use cases and functional areas can it be applied to?
What models are powering it?
In both cases, flexibility is critically important.
Why a Horizontal AI Approach Makes Sense Now
When economic uncertainty strikes, the instinct is often to cut costs and delay investments. But that's exactly when strategic technology decisions matter most. Here's why a horizontal AI platform should be your priority:
1. Do More With Your Existing Team
With the Tax Foundation projecting that Trump's tariffs could eliminate 669,000 jobs, many companies are freezing hiring. A horizontal AI platform lets you increase productivity without adding headcount.
A horizontal AI platform delivers this by:
Automating routine work across departments
Providing data-driven insights for better decisions
Making every employee more capable, regardless of technical skills
Standardizing best practices throughout your organization
McKinsey's research shows that while nearly all companies are investing in AI, only 1% have fully integrated it into workflows to drive substantial business outcomes. Those who achieve this integration gain a significant competitive advantage.
As Miles Collins from Embark puts it: "With elvex, I feel like I've gotten a few extra hours back in my day. Multiply that across hundreds of our employees and you can see the value."
2. Stop Wasting Money on Multiple AI Tools
Many companies are buying separate AI solutions for marketing, sales, customer service, and other departments—creating unnecessary costs and data silos. The last thing you need during economic uncertainty is to waste money on overlapping tools.
What’s more, AI is new to most workers. There’s enablement that needs to happen. Upleveling your workforce across 20+ different tools is a nightmare.
Unlike point solutions that offer small improvements in specific areas, a platform like elvex transforms how work gets done across your entire organization, presenting one consistent user interface to learn deeply.
elvex serves as your central AI hub, working with any AI model and integrating with your existing software. This approach:
Cuts redundant spending
Creates consistent AI capabilities company-wide
Makes adoption simpler
Centralizes security and governance
When the Tax Foundation projects that 2025 tariffs will reduce after-tax incomes by 2.1% (about $2,100 per household), every dollar of technology spending needs to deliver maximum value.
3. Pay Only for What You Actually Use
Traditional enterprise software often forces you to pay for seats you don't use or limits access to contain costs. That model doesn't work in today's environment.
elvex's usage-based pricing aligns costs with the value you receive. You can:
Deploy AI broadly without massive upfront costs
Scale up or down based on economic conditions
Pay only for actual usage
Ensure vendor incentives align with your success
This flexibility is crucial when cash conservation is a priority.
4. Stay Flexible, So Your Technology Can Adapt To Change
Every month there is a new model that takes over the top spot of the AI leaderboards. Similarly, every month there appears to be new geopolitical uncertainties.
Enterprise leaders looking at massive workforce transformation projects are understandably hesitant to make a correspondingly massive strategic bet on one of the model providers (like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and so on). This is doubly true because the model providers use outdated pricing models like charging per user seat.
The models can do incredible things—but they’re only half the solution. What you do with them is critically important, and this is what we call the “business logic.” Connecting corporate data, creating workflows that provide value, training employees, so on.
What happens when Google releases a model that can handle twice as much data per prompt? Or when Anthropic releases a model that’s better at coding assistance? The switching costs to move all your business logic to Google or Anthropic are too high, and you miss out.
A model-agnostic platform is the only thing that can grow with your business and the changing technology landscape at the same time. It gives you the flexibility you need to make a large strategic bet today, knowing you can keep pace with tomorrow.
Real Results: Embark's Success Story
Embark Consulting shows what's possible with a horizontal AI approach. After implementing elvex, they saw:
72% of consultants using AI daily
500+ AI apps built by their team
60% less time spent on meeting preparation
30% greater efficiency in routine tasks
Embark faced challenges that might sound familiar: rapid industry change, pressure to maintain quality while growing, and the need to preserve company culture. elvex helped them address all three.
Their consultants created AI assistants for meeting preparation, sales writing, technical research, project management, and more—all without coding skills. As their Chief of Staff, Madeleine Garcia, notes: "The creativity of building AI apps in elvex has spread across Embark like wildfire."
What Makes elvex Different
elvex stands out as a horizontal AI platform for three key reasons:
Anyone Can Build With It
You don't need developers to create AI solutions with elvex. Anyone in your organization can build powerful AI apps without coding.
As Jarrett Ferguson from Embark says: "Having elvex has made GenAI so much easier to work with—I spend less time building good prompts and more time interacting with the apps I've built."
It Works With Everything
Unlike solutions that lock you into one AI model (like OpenAI Enterprise), elvex works with multiple models including GPT, Claude, and Gemini. This means you can:
Choose the best model for each use case
Switch models as technology evolves
Avoid getting stuck with one vendor
Maintain a consistent experience for users
It's Enterprise-Ready
For C-level executives and IT leaders, elvex provides the security, access controls, and governance needed to deploy AI responsibly across an organization.
The Bottom Line
Today's market plunge is a stark reminder of the economic volatility we're facing. But it also creates an opportunity for forward-thinking leaders to gain an edge.
By investing in a horizontal AI platform like elvex, you can:
Boost productivity without adding headcount
Consolidate your technology spending
Align costs with actual value received
Stay flexible with model-agnostic solutions
The natural tendency during uncertainty is to postpone investments. But history shows that companies making strategic technology decisions during downturns often emerge stronger when conditions improve.
Don't wait for the perfect economic climate. The organizations that will thrive through this period of uncertainty are those taking decisive action now to enhance productivity, control costs, and build resilience.
Let's Talk
Have questions about how a horizontal AI platform could help your specific organization navigate these uncertain times? Drop a comment below or reach out directly. I'd love to discuss how these ideas might apply to your situation.