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.
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.
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.
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.
Each one's AI lives in that vendor's account.
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
InterchangeableWhat you own
Durable — your strategyStays put when the tools above change. This is what compounds.
What you already run
Existing — already in the businessThree 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.
