Customer validation: How do you handle AI deployment?

Working on validation for a potential dev tool and wanted to get this community's input.

Context:

Building AI features into products seems to require either:

1. Paying OpenAI/Anthropic (simple but expensive)

2. Self-hosting (cheap but complex)

I'm exploring if there's a middle ground - simple deployment with predictable pricing.

My Questions:

- Have you added AI features to your startup?

- What deployment approach did you take?

- What were the pain points?

- What would you pay for simpler infrastructure?

I've got a survey to gather more structured feedback: https://forms.gle/RmzcHnfQfaYBNALs5

But I'd also love to just hear your experiences in comments.

Plan to share findings with the community regardless of what I learn.