It's just an AI wrapper

"It's just an AI wrapper." Said like an insult
Nobody looks at a drill and says "it's just a motor." Nobody calls a fan "just a motor with blades." But that's exactly what those things are.
It's just that someone put the effort to figure out the grip angle. The speed settings. The cord length for a real kitchen. The noise level for a real bedroom. The switch placement for someone doing it one-handed.
That work - the unglamorous, obvious-in-hindsight work of fitting a capability to a real human need - is what turns a technology into a tool.
AI is the motor. Powerful, general, indifferent.
The wrapper is what makes it useful to the person who just needs to get something done and doesn't care how the thing works.
So yes. Wrap the model. But put the effort to understand your people.
The moat lives in that intimacy.