A view of the next decade

The AI Strategy

Computers, the internet, the cloud. Each one took about a decade to go from a novelty to the way everyone works. AI is on the same path, only faster.

01 / the pattern

Same pattern. Different tech. Less time.

Three stages, every time. Novelty first. Then a tool. Then it's the default. AI is moving through it faster than any of them.

1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 Computers Novelty Tool Default The internet Novelty Tool Default Cloud Novelty Tool Default AI Novelty Tool Default

Computers took 23 years to get to the default stage. AI is on track to do it in 8.

AI is in the tool stage. You decide what it becomes in your business over the next year or two. Not the next decade.

02 / where we are

Every vendor has AI in their product.

Most are calling the same models you can call directly. The real work is the prompts and the connections. You can build those yourself.

Marketing
ChatGPT
IT
Microsoft Copilot
Engineering
GitHub Copilot
Sales
Salesforce Einstein
Workspace
Gemini

Each one's AI lives in that vendor's account.

03 / what to own

Tools change. Strategy doesn't.

Picking the best AI tool today is a moving target. It could be a different one in six months. The companies getting this right keep the parts that matter in a place they own: instructions, knowledge, rules, evaluations.

The four kinds of AI tool

Interchangeable
loaded into whichever tool is in use

What you own

Durable — your strategy
SKILLS & RULES
how your AI should behave
KNOWLEDGE & MEMORY
what your business knows
POLICY & GUARDRAILS
what AI is and isn't allowed to do
EVALUATIONS
tests that prove it still works

Stays put when the tools above change. This is what compounds.

reaches into what you already run

What you already run

Existing — already in the business
DOCUMENTS
SharePoint · Google Drive
OPERATIONS
SAP · Workday
WAREHOUSE
Snowflake · Databricks
IDENTITY
Microsoft Entra · Okta

Three layers. The top changes every year. The bottom was here before AI and will be here after. The middle is where your AI strategy actually lives, and the only piece that has to be yours.

You'll have an AI strategy.

The question is whose.