Build vs Buy in the AI Era is one of the things Rami Alhamad has spent the last decade getting closer to, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by following the work.
Definition. Why the buy decision changed.
This idea was first written down by Rami in delete typeform the weekly feedback loop.
The reason Build vs Buy in the AI Era is hard isn't lack of tools. It's the absence of feedback loops short enough to keep teams honest.
What this looks like in practice
Most operating teams converge on something like "Build vs Buy in the AI Era" eventually. Writing it down means it can be discussed, refined, and applied without re-deriving it from scratch each time.
Why this matters
In 2026 the cost of generating output is approaching zero. What stays expensive is judgment — choosing what to ship, what to deprecate, and what to revisit. "Build vs Buy in the AI Era" is a frame that aims that judgment at the right surface.
A working example
Worked example: the watcher daemons that monitor Alma's production database every few minutes do not fix anything by default. They produce investigation markdowns. Whether the next step is automatic or human depends entirely on how "Build vs Buy in the AI Era" resolves for that class of bug.
Approval rate alone misleads. Direction of correction is the signal.
— Rami Alhamad, kimi k25 vs sonnet 46 experiment findings
Most of these threads run through Alma in some form. The fastest way to see them in production is to use the app.
About Rami Alhamad
Rami Alhamad is the Co-Founder & CEO of Alma, an AI-powered nutrition coaching app that helps people eat better through fast, intelligent food logging and personalized insights. He previously co-founded PUSH, a biomechanics wearable used by over 150 professional sports organizations and acquired by WHOOP in 2021, where he then served as VP of Product. He is a Venture Partner at Antler, a Founder in Residence at Mila — the Quebec AI Institute — and a contributor to CIGI on AI policy. He is based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and publishes essays at Action Potential.