An alternative to building your own AI agent
You can build your own, and some teams should. But the build is the small part. Someone has to connect it to your systems, get it through security review, keep it working every time a process, a model or a tool changes, and get your team using it. With Invellis, that someone is us: there's no new app to learn, because if you can send a message, you can work with it, and you pay only once it delivers what we agreed.
| Capability | Invellis | Build it yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Recurring work you hand off and want done | Full control, if you have developers to build and run it |
| It has its own name and its own account | Yes. A real account in your Microsoft 365. Everything it does is logged to it. | Partial. Yes, if you set one up |
| It works inside Teams, Outlook and Office, not beside them | Yes. Every app, from day one | Partial. Only what you build |
| Long, open-ended conversations | Yes. In Teams chat, and it remembers where you left off | Partial. Only if you build it |
| Ask it something in the meeting and the whole room sees the answer | Yes. Replies in the meeting chat, as itself | Partial. Possible, with a lot of build |
| You decide whether it works for one person or the whole team | Yes. Dedicated or shared. A dedicated one tells no one else. | Yes. Whatever you design |
| Start today, on your own | No. We set it up for you in days, or guide your IT team through it | No. Months to hire and build |
| Your data stays yours | Yes. Lives in your tenant; models run in Azure we operate, never trained on your data | Yes. Wherever you host it |
| Your security team can see it, govern it and switch it off | Yes. Licensed into the Microsoft agent platform from day one | Partial. As well as you build it |
| One flat price, with no usage charges | Yes. Flat fee per teammate. The token costs are ours. | No. Developer time, then usage and upkeep |
| Costs little for light or occasional use | No. A monthly fee per teammate, priced for recurring work | No. A developer's time before any result |
| Advanced workflows built for you, not by you | Yes. Learns everyday workflows on its own; we build one advanced workflow per account, included | No. You build and maintain all of it |
Compared at each product's standard business tier. Custom enterprise agreements, negotiated discounts and private pricing are not reflected.
Accurate as of Q3 2026. Building costs and timelines depend on your team, your process and your systems; this page describes a typical in-house build. If something here is out of date, tell us at help@invellis.com and we will fix it.
The build is the smallest part of the bill.
A developer or an agency can get an AI agent working in a demo. Getting it into daily use is the longer job: connecting it to your email, Teams and CRM, giving it an identity your IT team can govern, testing it on real work, and getting it through security review. Then it needs looking after. Models change, tools change how they connect, and your own processes move on, and every change lands on whoever built it.
You pay before you know it works.
A custom build is paid for up front, in developer time or an agency invoice, before anyone knows whether it will deliver. With Invellis we set the teammate up at no cost, agree in writing what it has to deliver, and the paid subscription begins only once it meets that goal.
It arrives as a teammate, not a project.
An Invellis teammate comes with its own Microsoft 365 account, a mailbox and a place in Teams, governed from the admin centers your IT team already uses. Your people work with it by sending it a message or talking to it on a call. Building that identity and that experience yourself is a project of its own, before the agent does any work.
Security and compliance come with it.
A home-built agent has to get through your security review on its own, and someone on your team has to answer every questionnaire. An Invellis teammate arrives with those answers: access scoped to what its role needs and logged in your own tenant, encryption in transit and at rest, and a security program that covers how we build, test and release it. We sign business associate agreements for healthcare data and a data processing agreement where you need one, and our trust center has the documents your reviewers will ask for.
Your own process, built for you.
Every customer account on a paid plan includes one custom workflow, built around your own steps, systems and handoffs. You get the part of a custom build that matters most, without hiring for it, and we keep it running as your process changes.
When building is the right answer
Three cases where we would tell you to build:
- You have developers with time to spare, and you want them to own and run AI agents for years, not months.
- The process is your core product or a trade secret, and it must never run on someone else's platform.
- You need full control over the code, the models and where everything runs.
Plenty of teams do both: they build what is unique to them, and hand the everyday recurring work to a teammate.
Questions we get asked
How long does it take to build an AI agent in-house?
It depends on the process and your systems. A working demo is usually quick. Connecting it to your real systems, getting it through security review and making it reliable takes much longer, and the upkeep never ends. An Invellis teammate is set up by us inside your Microsoft 365, and you see it working during the 30-day trial.
What does building it ourselves really cost?
More than the build. Budget for the developer or agency, the AI model usage it consumes, connecting it to each system, security review, and someone to maintain it as things change. Our cost calculator compares doing the work by hand, on a metered tool, and on a flat fee.
Is our data safer if we build it ourselves?
It can be, if you host it yourselves and have the security skills to run it well. An Invellis teammate lives in your own Microsoft 365 tenant, the models behind it run in Azure we operate under Microsoft's enterprise terms, nothing it handles is used to train a model, and we sign business associate agreements for healthcare data.
Who keeps it secure after launch?
With a home-built agent, your team does: monitoring it, reviewing what it can access, and re-checking it every time a model or a connected tool changes. With Invellis we do, under the security program set out in our trust center, and your administrators can see what it does and switch it off from the Microsoft admin centers they already use.
Can we start with Invellis and build later?
Yes. A teammate works in your own Microsoft 365, the work it produces stays with you, and monthly plans end with 30 days' notice. Many teams learn what they actually need from a teammate first, then decide what is worth building.
See what it would cost you.
Or see what doing it by hand costs you today and compare it against a flat fee.