Jun 21, 2025

StackAI vs Distyl

StackAI vs Distyl

The enterprise AI landscape presents a fundamental choice: empower your internal teams with tools to build their own solutions, or partner with an elite external team to have those solutions built for you. This decision separates two very different approaches to achieving AI-driven transformation.

StackAI provides a no-code/low-code AI orchestration platform, designed to put the power of AI development into the hands of business users. In contrast, Distyl operates as an AI solutions partner, deploying its “SEAL Team Six of AI engineering” to build custom, high-impact systems for Fortune 500 companies. This comparison breaks down their distinct models, strengths, and ideal use cases to help you determine which path is right for your organization.

Side-by-Side Comparison: StackAI vs. Distyl

Feature / Philosophy

StackAI

Distyl

Core Offering

No-code AI workflow builder (Product)

Bespoke AI solutions (Service + Platform)

Business Model

SaaS Platform Subscription

Outcome-Driven Partnership / Consulting

Target User

Business users, operations/finance teams, IT

C-suite, transformation leaders

Who Builds?

Your internal teams

Distyl’s expert engineers & researchers

User Interface

✅ Visual drag-and-drop canvas

❌ No user-facing builder platform

On-Premise Deployment

✅ Yes

❌ No (Solutions are integrated, not self-hosted)

Time to Value

Weeks for initial tools

Months for large-scale transformation

Security Certifications

SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR

Proven by Fortune 500 contracts

Core Philosophy and Approach

The most significant difference between StackAI and Distyl is their business model and philosophy on how enterprises should adopt AI.

StackAI: The No-Code AI Builder (Product)

Stack AI no-code AI builder templates

StackAI is a product-led company. It provides a powerful yet accessible no-code AI builder that enables an organization’s own employees to create AI agents and automate workflows. The platform features a visual, drag-and-drop interface where users can connect various components—LLMs, internal knowledge bases like SharePoint, enterprise applications like Salesforce, and custom logic—to solve specific business problems.

The core philosophy is democratization and empowerment. StackAI believes the people closest to a problem are best equipped to solve it. By providing them with the right tools, an organization can scale AI development across departments, rapidly deploying solutions for back-office automation, knowledge management, and customer support—without relying solely on a central IT or engineering team.

Distyl: The AI Solutions Partner (Service)

Distyl is a service-led company. It operates as a high-end AI consultancy or solutions partner, combining its proprietary platform, Distillery, with an elite team of engineers and researchers from Palantir, OpenAI, and Apple. Distyl does not sell its platform as a standalone product; it uses it to accelerate the delivery of large-scale, bespoke AI systems for its clients.

Their philosophy is outcome-driven partnership. They engage with Fortune 100 companies to tackle mission-critical initiatives with the promise of delivering $100M+ impact. A client brings a complex business challenge—like overhauling a global supply chain—and Distyl’s team designs and deploys a custom AI solution to solve it. They are a strategic partner for transformation, not a software vendor.

Ease of Use and Target Audience

The intended user for each offering is fundamentally different.

StackAI is designed for business teams.
An operations manager at an insurance company can use StackAI to build a tool that automates claim processing. A compliance officer at a bank can create an agent to review contracts. The platform is built for the “doers” within an organization, abstracting away technical complexity so they can build solutions independently.

Distyl is designed for the C-suite.
Their clients are enterprise leaders with ambitious transformation goals and the budget for a premium partnership. The “user” of Distyl is the client company, but the hands-on work is performed by Distyl’s own team. It is a solution for organizations that want to buy an outcome, not build a capability.

Flexibility and Deployment

Both approaches offer customization, but the control and deployment models are worlds apart.

StackAI deployment selection

With StackAI, flexibility is in the hands of the user. The visual builder provides granular control to design any AI assistant workflow. Users can choose from any LLM, connect to multiple data sources, and deploy their finished application through 10+ interfaces, including:

  • Chatbots

  • Forms

  • Batch processors

  • APIs

  • Slack or Teams apps

  • Chrome extensions

StackAI also supports on-premise AI deployment, allowing enterprises to run AI within their own secure cloud for maximum data sovereignty.

With Distyl, the final solution is highly customized—but the client cannot modify or iterate on it themselves. Changes require re-engaging Distyl’s team. Deployment is a deep, tailored integration into enterprise systems, owned and managed by Distyl, with a focus on precision and performance, not internal reuse.

Use Cases in Practice

StackAI Use Cases

  • A financial services firm empowers advisors to build AI agents that connect to CRMs and internal documents to draft personalized client outreach.

  • A healthcare provider uses HIPAA-compliant on-premise deployment to help staff search patient summaries and protocols.

  • A university admissions team builds a custom AI to categorize thousands of application essays by criteria, saving hundreds of staff hours.

Distyl Use Cases

  • A Fortune 500 manufacturer partners with Distyl to optimize a global supply chain, improving resolution times by 40%.

  • A global telecom company engages Distyl to build AI-native workflows that automate complex business operations.

  • A major CPG company uses Distyl to embed GenAI in core operations for competitive advantages in speed and efficiency.

Pros & Cons

StackAI Pros

Distyl Pros

✅ Empowers internal teams to build solutions

✅ Access to an elite team of AI experts

✅ Faster deployment for departmental tools

✅ Solves massive, mission-critical problems

✅ Lower cost and predictable SaaS pricing

✅ Delivers fully managed, outcome-based solutions

✅ High flexibility with 10+ deployment options

✅ No need to hire expensive, scarce AI talent

✅ On-premise deployment for data sovereignty


✅ Clear SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance


StackAI Cons

Distyl Cons

❌ Requires internal user adoption and training

❌ Very high cost and significant investment

❌ May not fit massive one-off transformations

❌ Long-term dependency on a single vendor


❌ Not a tool for internal teams to use or learn from


❌ Slower time-to-value for early results





Final Verdict: Which GenAI Platform is Right for You?

Choosing between StackAI and Distyl is a strategic decision about how your organization wants to leverage AI. They are not direct competitors; they represent two distinct models for achieving AI-driven results.

You should choose StackAI if:

You want to build internal AI capabilities and empower business teams to solve their own problems. If your goal is to create a culture of innovation, accelerate back-office automation, and keep development in-house with a secure and scalable no-code tool, StackAI is the right path. It’s the tool for companies that want to learn how to fish.

You should choose Distyl if:

You have a massive, complex, and mission-critical business challenge and prefer to partner with a top-tier AI firm to deliver a bespoke solution. If your focus is on guaranteed outcomes and speed at scale—and you have the budget—Distyl provides the premium, white-glove experience. It’s the solution for companies that want to be served the perfectly cooked fish.

For organizations ready to scale AI adoption by enabling their own teams to build, deploy, and manage custom AI solutions, StackAI provides the secure, accessible, and powerful platform to make it happen.

👉 Request a demo today to see how StackAI can help you build and scale custom AI solutions for your enterprise.

Paul Omenaca

Customer Success at Stack AI

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