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​Why Every Startup Needs an AI Strategy​

Every company will be an AI company. Every startup needs an AI strategy - not just for fundraising or press appeal.

User expectations have changed. When one email composer window autocompletes sentences, every email product will need to follow. When one customer support bot provides a meaningfully better experience to answer questions, every competitor will match it.

ChatGPT & Midjourney have educated hundreds of millions that we can & should expect more from software. Now those teeming masses will demand it.

How quickly users switch from one product to another depends on the category of software : the switching costs, the pain associated with a lack of the feature, or the loss in productivity without it.

Today, there are three different levels of AI strategy:

• single feature : autocompletion of text or code within a text editor
• department level : automated customer support agent
• core to the product : an image generation business that builds a proprietary large language model

Most businesses will likely adopt the first & as the technologies mature, the second. Newer businesses will pursue the third as a competitive advantage as they reimagine workflows.

Many core software products map real world workflows to software ; these will change.

Text & chat UIs will change those expectations : imagine developing a project management plan in a conversation with a computer or reconciling expenses by dictating an answer to a mobile phone.

These new user interfaces will change software.

It may be easy to dismiss an AI strategy as a fundraising tactic (yet another AI company), but the trope underscores a meaningful shift in what ultimately matters :

User expectations have evolved & every business will need to meet their demands to thrive.

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