AI Is Commoditizing Intelligence.
AI Is Commoditizing Intelligence.
Value Is Moving Elsewhere.
AI capability is becoming widely accessible. Multiple vendors now offer comparable reasoning models and costs continue to fall. Intelligence itself is losing its power as a competitive moat.
This resembles previous technology shifts. Electricity, the internet, and cloud infrastructure eventually became widely available. Once that happened, value moved to the systems built on top.
In the AI era, advantage is shifting toward context and environment.
Two companies using the same model can produce very different outcomes depending on what the AI can access. Internal data, operational workflows, historical decisions, and connected systems determine how useful the intelligence becomes. The richer the context, the more leverage an organization gets from AI.
This also changes how software works.
Traditional software relies on deterministic logic written by developers to perform specific tasks. AI systems operate as agents that use context and integrations to produce outcomes. The software layer becomes a runtime environment combined with instructions and access to systems.
Many existing software products may start to compress. Much of SaaS helps people perform multi-step workflows. AI systems increasingly execute those workflows directly and return results for review.
The technology stack is evolving roughly along these layers: Compute AI models Agent runtimes Context and data Integrations Workflow ownership Distribution
Models alone are unlikely to capture most of the value. Control over context, workflows, and integrations carries more strategic weight.
Distribution remains important. Companies that control user entry points and daily workflows historically capture disproportionate value, regardless of architecture.
The main opportunity for organizations lies in rethinking how work gets done when intelligence becomes cheap and widely available. AI systems increasingly execute tasks that previously required multiple tools and manual coordination.