AI Strategy Two Futures for Artificial Intelligence There are two competing visions of artificial intelligence. In one, humans work for AI. In the other, AI works for humans. The future we choose will determine whether AI replaces human capability or expands it.
Tech History The AI Industry Is Rediscovering Something Old Proprietary data as competitive advantage is not a new idea. In 1969 David Ness co-founded Interactive Market Systems, building programmatic advertising on a mainframe. The right first question hasn't changed in fifty years.
Agentic Commerce Agentic Commerce and the Reality of Debit Cards Most agentic commerce conversations assume a customer with a credit card. That is not most of America. For a significant portion of this country, the only form of electronic payment is a debit card. One agent error and the rent check bounces.
AI Strategy Public Polling on AI Is Consistently Negative. Let Me Explain Why. Mobile brought everyone to the table. AI is pulling up the chairs. The people most affected by AI job displacement are the same people who lack the sophistication to participate in the AI economy.
AI Opportunity AI Plus Beginner's Mind Steve Jobs called the PC a bicycle for the mind. Think of AI as a Formula 1 car. The people who will thrive are not the most technically sophisticated. They are the ones who know what they want to create.
AI Governance Your Product Team May Have Already Given Away the IP When your team types a proprietary formulation into a public AI tool, that information leaves your control. A federal court ruling and a Proskauer Rose framework make clear the trade secret and patent exposure is real.
AI Governance Public vs. Private AI: What Most Organizations Don't Know That $20 a month subscription your employees are using is public AI. Not private. A federal court ruled in February 2026 that documents created in a public AI platform destroyed attorney-client privilege. Most organizations don't know this yet.
AI Strategy The Spreadsheet Moment: Where AI Is Right Now Spreadsheets worked beautifully in the hands of the person who built them. Then they tried to share them. AI is following the same pattern. Most organizations have the prototypes. Very few have the architect.
Tech History David Ness and the Origin of Decision Support Systems David Ness was my professor, my mentor, and my friend. He built the intellectual foundation for what AI is trying to do now. Wharton dissolved the Decision Sciences department in 1993. They didn't understand what they had.
Agentic Commerce AI Is Real. Agentic Shopping May Not Be. The wave is real. Not everything riding it is. The organizations that win identify which AI capabilities will fundamentally change how they compete. Identifying the paradigm shift is the skill. Anyone can chase the fad.
AI Strategy The Prescription: Where to Start With AI The first question isn't which model to use. It's where in the organization do decisions actually get made. Map the decision architecture first. Deploy the technology second. Most organizations do this in the wrong order.
Tech History We Planted a Flag Before the Category Had a Name In 1997 I co-founded PriceSCAN before comparison shopping had a name. The rules are different early. Access that exists now won't exist later. Some advantages can't be acquired at any price once the window closes.
AI Results Two Buckets. Clean Record. Both Directions. Two years of production AI experiments produced a clean finding. Every experiment designed to replace a person failed. Every experiment designed to enhance a person won. The record is clean in both directions.
Tech History Refusal Is a Choice. It's Just Not a Good One. Spreadsheets didn't eliminate finance teams but professionals who refused to learn them were replaced by ones who did. AI is following the same pattern. The gap is already forming. Refusal is a choice. It's just not a good one.
Enterprise AI The Individual vs. Organizational AI Gap Individuals are getting faster with AI. Organizations aren't. Workflows, decision systems, and operating models are largely unchanged. That gap is where most of the opportunity is.
Agentic AI Agentic AI Raises the Bar. Most Organizations Aren't Ready. Agentic AI promises systems that take action, not just generate output. That requires clear decision boundaries, defined ownership, and governance most organizations haven't built. Without that, the technology remains a demo. Not an operating system.
Enterprise AI AI Is the Builder. Architecture Determines the Advantage. Most organizations ask which AI model to use, which vendor to select, which pilot to run. Those are not the first question. The first question is architectural. AI behaves like a builder, not a strategist. Durable advantage comes from the architecture around it.
AI and Work The Ceiling Is Determined by the Person, Not the Tool. Same model. Same underlying system. Our creative director produced materially stronger results than the platform provider's own demonstration. Access to the model is not the advantage. Human direction is. The ceiling is determined less by the tool and more by the person guiding it.
AI Opportunity AI Is a Bicycle for the Mind. Not a Replacement for the Rider. Steve Jobs called the PC a bicycle for the mind. AI is the same principle at a different order of magnitude. The organizations that treat AI as augmentation will compound their advantage. The ones that treat it as headcount reduction will miss the point.
Tech History AI Is the New Social Is the New Digital. For fifteen years companies were rewarded for having a strong digital story. Then a strong social story. Now an AI story. The announcement often moves the stock. Operationalizing it is much harder. Most AI strategies stall for the same predictable reasons every time.