AI has a very high rate of technological change and very fast market evolution - those are the conditions that leads to the least first-mover advantage.
It seems like investors and startups have underestimated the speed at which enterprises will integrate ai into their operations. (I have zero insight into the consumer side.)
Rob, 100%! First-mover advantage matters less in AI because later entrants can leverage better models, data, and market insights to outperform early competitors. Companies don’t care so much about bespoke or proprietary technology and are happy to take later refined developments. Our success in PE advisory services for them and their port co’s and the bespoke saas we deliver for it, depends more on domain expertise, trust, and delivering measurable outcomes than being first to market. With the domain expertise, we can deliver ROI that reflects their needs rather than traditional consultant KPI’s. Additionally, rapid advancements in AI tools and evolving customer needs favor adaptability and continuous improvement over initial positioning. To a certain extent we are in the customer service business more than the technology business, even though, of course the technology and subject expert is critical.
This article is old, but really good and I think has held the test of time on when first-mover advantage works. https://hbr.org/2005/04/the-half-truth-of-first-mover-advantage
AI has a very high rate of technological change and very fast market evolution - those are the conditions that leads to the least first-mover advantage.
It seems like investors and startups have underestimated the speed at which enterprises will integrate ai into their operations. (I have zero insight into the consumer side.)
Rob, 100%! First-mover advantage matters less in AI because later entrants can leverage better models, data, and market insights to outperform early competitors. Companies don’t care so much about bespoke or proprietary technology and are happy to take later refined developments. Our success in PE advisory services for them and their port co’s and the bespoke saas we deliver for it, depends more on domain expertise, trust, and delivering measurable outcomes than being first to market. With the domain expertise, we can deliver ROI that reflects their needs rather than traditional consultant KPI’s. Additionally, rapid advancements in AI tools and evolving customer needs favor adaptability and continuous improvement over initial positioning. To a certain extent we are in the customer service business more than the technology business, even though, of course the technology and subject expert is critical.