How AI Will Impact Your Strategy and Competitive Advantage

AI is changing the game—and it’s happening fast. In this video, Steve breaks down how artificial intelligence is reshaping business strategy and creating new competitive advantages for companies that know how to leverage it.

You’ll learn how your competitors are using AI to move faster, cut costs, and outpace the market—and what you need to do now to stay ahead. Whether you're a business owner, strategist, or leader, this is your guide to staying relevant in the AI era.

Don’t get left behind—watch now and future-proof your business.

TRANSCRIPT:

If you're a business owner or a business leader, watch out because AI is radically gonna transform the way your company competes in three primary ways.

Number one, AI is gonna equalize the playing field. Let me explain what I mean by that.

In the past, a lot of organizations had this competitive advantage as it relates to execution. In other words, they have certain skills or knowledge or capabilities that their competitors didn't have and therefore they had a leg up. Well, now AI enters the scene in these companies that lack these resources in the past, now have access to the same tools, they can create the same copy, they can create landing pages, they can strengthen their offer, they can improve their sales processes, they could create standard operating procedures, they can use AI as a leverage point in their business where they didn't have that in the past.

So it equalizes the playing field because everybody has the same access to the same tools. Now, sure, a lot of AI and the output of AI is dependent on the prompt, but still I think you get my point. These companies that underperformed in the past from an executional standpoint now have the same tools as the big boys and big girls.

So you have to watch out for that. So I know companies who have a competitive advantage because of their execution, their ability to execute. But a lot of that is going away because now their rivals are catching up because they have AI as a tool in their back pocket.

So that's what I mean by equalization. It equalizes everything, and it just requires companies to step up their game. So when I think about Coltivar and what we do, and when I think about the clients that we serve, this is a topic that is heavy on my heart because we have to find new ways to develop competitive advantages because everything is raising.

The bar is being raised for everybody, and therefore we have to act accordingly.

All right, so that's number one, equalization.

Number two, when it comes to AI, I think it's creating a ton of noise and distraction for business leaders and their companies, and everybody in these organizations, to be honest.

So think about it. With Google, you can spend all day long getting lost in the worldwide web by doing Google searches and going down these rabbit holes. But now with AI, it just made this problem so much worse.

So think about it. You type in a prompt, and it will return paragraphs of information, and now it's just information and information and information, and it just creates information overload. And I know some companies out there that are like, I'm just gonna create blogs from AI, and they just type in these prompts, they create these blogs, post them on their website, which creates more and more content out there in the world for people to consume.

And actually, if you're doing this, Google and other platforms, they actually punish companies that use AI to just strictly write all this content and just to push it out there in the world because it's not original content. That's a side note there. But the bigger problem that I'm talking about is that AI is just introducing more information, more confusion, more distractions, just more, more, more, more.

And in my other episodes, I've talked about this, and I've related the importance of good, better, and best, and it really comes down to pursuing the best things. I got that from Dallin H. Oaks. He gave a great talk about this a while back about good, better, best, and how it's so important to just pursue the best things.

So when it comes to businesses and their business leaders, oftentimes, at least the companies that I work with and I turn around and I help to grow, I'm not worried about their leaders being slackers, right? It's not that they're not working hard or they're not ambitious. The problem that I'm most concerned about is their focus. Their focus is so scattered, and when it's scattered, it's hard to achieve results.

I mean, think about it. If you were to learn how to play the piano, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna learn how to play the piano, I'm gonna do that for three months, and then I'm gonna switch to the guitar, and then I'm gonna switch to the violin, and then after that, I'm gonna go to the cello, you're not gonna know how to play anything that well. I mean, because you don't have the time and the resources to pour into that one capability, right? Building that one skillset or capability, and therefore, you'll never develop it.

Because building a business, creating a product, enhancing a service, whatever it may be, it requires time, a certain amount of time. And if your time is spread across multiple activities, you're not gonna make much progress. So that's what I worry about with AI.

That's point number two, is just the number of distractions. So when I go into organizations, I look at the value gap of their company. What is the gap between their current value and their potential value? And then we act with precision, because we know exactly the financial levers of a business to drive value.

And when we get in there, it's like, okay, this is exactly what you could do, right? Work on these three things, because these three things will solve the problem. That's what we say to our clients. And if they focus on those things, then it will drive tremendous value.

But what happens is we'll say, here are three things to focus on, and then inevitably, somebody's gonna get distracted with an idea over here, a book they read over here, with a conversation over here, or another project, or a new shiny object. Think you get the point. And then their focus is scattered.

They're all over the place, and they don't execute, and therefore, they don't close the gap, and they don't drive greater value. So that's the problem with AI, is it's creating more content, more information, more, more, more, more, more, and it's up to us as business leaders to narrow our focus and get just very precise on what we're trying to solve.

All right, number three, the third issue that I see with AI and how it'll disrupt businesses is that it's causing everybody to go faster.

Everything's going faster. And I know for myself, I'm so impatient. I always joke around with my kids.

I say, look, I'd never be a good doctor because I have no patience. And they're like, ha-ha, dad, it's a dumb dad joke. Whatever.

But my point is that it's all about speed, speed of execution. And AI is just causing everything to go so much faster. So there are companies that are struggling right now because they are like five, 10, 20 years behind.

They have all these paper processes, they don't have the technology, their operating model's outdated, and they're just going slow. And I'm like, you're gonna be destroyed by a competitor who leverages AI, who gets leaner, who eliminates a lot of redundancies, a lot of duplications, a lot of waste, and they automate a lot of their processes. Like, you're gonna be crushed by them because their cost structure's gonna be lower, they're gonna be able to pick up more margin or lower their prices and squeeze you out, and therefore, they're gonna disrupt your business.

So those are the three things that are on my mind when it comes to AI. Equalization, distractions, and speed. And I think if you can put in place a strategy for your business and you can focus on a system to execute, then you'll overcome these hurdles and you'll be successful.

And you'll be able to leverage AI as a great tool in your business to drive greater value. But watch out because if you don't do these things and if you don't watch out for these things, it's very likely that your business will start suffering and perhaps you'll lose market share, your revenue will decline, your profitability will decrease, which then leads to cash flow issues, and then, you know, the rest of the story. Don't go down that path, all right? But that's what I have for you today, that's what's on my heart.

If you wanna connect, if you wanna talk more about strategy and about your business, you can always find me at Colitvar.com. And until next time, take care of yourself.

Cheers.