AI lowered the cost of building software. Enterprise governance hasn’t caught up

Presented by Retool The logic used to be: buying software is cheaper, faster, and safer for most use cases. Building was reserved for companies with large engineering teams, deep pockets, and problems so specific that no vendor could address them. But now, the cost to code a piece of software has dropped to zero. Anyone can build their own software now, but enterprise and governance models have yet to catch up. Retool’s 2026 Build vs. Buy Shift Report, based on a survey of 817 builders, traces exactly how this shift is playing out.The cost curve changed; SaaS pricing didn’tTwo years ago, a custom internal tool might have taken an engineering team weeks or months and cost six figures. Today, an operations lead with the right platform can have a working prototype in a day or two. This struct