We’ve moved past the gentle cushion of “AI pilot experiments” and well into the era of “AI as table stakes”. The companies that win from here won’t be the ones dabbling with proofs of concept — they’ll be the ones already asking a harder question:
“How do we use AI to create true, durable competitive advantage?”
If you’re a CEO, CPO, or CTO still tinkering at the edges, take a deep breath, give yourself a hug, and get moving. These are fun times — chaotic, yes — but full of opportunity. And the gap between “experimenting” and “leading” is widening quickly.
AI That Simply Scales Human Effort Is Not a Winning Strategy
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: AI that automates or accelerates human tasks is useful. It drives efficiency. It improves margin. It buys back time.
But it does not create long-term differentiation. It places you in a neutral, table-stakes position. If you’re early, you’ll get a short burst of advantage. Then everyone else catches up.
The next era is where the real value is created: AI that extends beyond human capability, not AI that merely mimics it. This is where competitive advantage begins.
Look Beyond the Product—Rethink the Entire Value Chain
Most companies limit their AI imagination to the product itself: features, personalization, automation. That’s good — it’s just not enough. True competitive advantage comes when AI is applied across everything that makes your business work: how your product is fulfilled, the data foundations it runs on, how your offering evolves and improves, how your business is measured, and how your workforce thinks, works, and collaborates.
If you already embrace a “Learn & Adjust” mentality, you’re ahead of the average organization — but the bar is still low. Running an A/B test is fine. Running thousands of pre-tests on AI models before touching production is better. Moving from manual optimization to self-optimizing, self-healing systems powered by agentic AI is where the world is heading.
This isn’t futuristic. It’s happening now.
How We Apply AI (Real Examples, Today)
As the CPO/CTO of an industry-leading MarTech/AdTech company, we’ve been living this transformation firsthand. Our platform delivers best-in-class omni-channel Email + Digital Advertising at scale, sitting atop a massive identity graph. AI is embedded everywhere — not as a feature, but as a force multiplier.
Campaign Fulfillment
- Audience Targeting: AI-driven propensity scoring and intent prediction
- Creative Production: Expanding a single core creative into dozens of multi-channel variants with consistent style, message, and aesthetic
- Media Buying: Optimization, pacing, bid strategy, anomaly discovery
- Fraud Protection: Detection, throttling, and automatic mitigation
- Creative Optimization: Real-time scoring and rotation
- Attribution & Insights: Modeling that goes deeper than human analysts ever could
Audience Data & Model Optimization
- Audience Data Optimization: Cleansing, enrichment, identity stitching
- AI Audiences: Predictive audiences that outperform traditional segmentation
AI for Organizational Enablement
Beyond the product and data, AI is transforming how we work:
- Insights: Faster, deeper operational intelligence
- Product Research: Rapid exploration, synthesis, and prototyping
- Engineering Speed: Code generation, testing, review, and system design
- Customer Success: Ticket automation, playbooks, conversational support
- Finance: Forecasting, variance detection, and scenario modeling
AI isn’t just powering our product. It’s powering our business.
If You’re Behind, Don’t Panic — But Do Move with Intention
Falling behind in AI isn’t fatal, but staying behind is. If you need to catch up, here’s what I recommend:
Talk to those who are ahead. You’ll learn more in one hour of honest conversation than in 40 hours of market research.
Time-box exploration (4 weeks + 4 weeks). Weeks 0–4 are exploring, building, and benchmarking. Weeks 4–8 are narrowing, prioritizing, and deciding. If you’re still “exploring AI” after 90 days, you’re not exploring — you’re stuck.
Hire and partner simultaneously. Don’t wait until you’re fully staffed to start executing. Bring in partners while you recruit.
Eliminate two common blockers. Rigid governance that prevents experimentation and underestimating AI costs, especially compute and inference
But the biggest blocker? A lack of imagination. Companies that treat AI as a tool will be average. Companies that treat AI as a strategy will lead.
The Leaders Will Be the Ones Who Build with Competitive Advantage in Mind
We’re at the very beginning of a technological shift that will rival — and likely surpass — the internet era.
Those who win won’t simply automate human tasks. They’ll redesign the business. They’ll rethink their value chain. They’ll build capabilities that competitors cannot easily replicate.
And they’ll use AI not just to scale human effort, but to transcend it.
Author
James Malcolm is an AI-fluent executive with over 25 years of product, creative, and technology leadership experience at Accenture, Calendly, private equity, and companies in all stages. Currently the CPO/CTO at Site Impact. He enjoys a good book, long romantic walks on the beach, and delivering business outcomes.
