Cast your mind back to 1999. It was the year of Napster, the Euro, and SpongeBob SquarePants. (It truly was the best and worst of times…)
It was also the height of the dot-com bubble, where companies across the Western hemisphere went doolaly for digital (with some even adding .com to their name – a trick that saw listed companies add 74% to their stock price within the first 10 days) .
In advertising, this was the point ‘digital agencies’ began to emerge from the old creative agency chrysalis – initially offering websites, then ‘web 2.0’, and finally ‘digital transformation’.
In many ways, it feels like 1999 again. The hype, the frenzy, the fear of missing out. Generative AI might be a fundamentally different technology, but it’s provoking a similar response – particularly amongst consulting, training, and research businesses desperate not to be left behind.
What began as an internal drive for efficiency (”How can we optimise?”) has become something more existential (”How can we transform?”). Across industry get-togethers and thought leadership content, the question is no longer if but how expert firms will embrace AI.
And that how question really comes down to a choice between two routes:
- The strategy route
- The positioning route
(For more on this distinction, listen to this conversation between Blair Enns and David C. Baker)
Strategy or positioning?
Strategy refers to the business model, the offering, how you make money.
A shift in strategy – prompted by the new possibilities of the technology – is by definition a more intrinsic change. It’s a fundamental reimagining of the business, like when a traditional sustainability consultancy reinvents itself as an AI platform with specialist consultants bolted on.
We’ve seen this with the likes of AtlasAI (legal advice), Ammonite (report writing) and TheAX (management consulting).
Positioning (on the other hand) refers to the space you own, the story you tell, how you are perceived.
A shift here – assuming no fundamental shift in strategy – is by definition a more extrinsic exercise. It's a reaction to changes in the market, a chance to be known for something different. Think of it as a reorientation of the brand, like when a research agency develops a new AI tool and places it front and centre of their proposition.
We’ve seen this with the likes of Accenture (with their ‘AI reinvention’ focus), Unity Advisory (tax/auditing) and Cognizant (IT consulting).
All that glitters is not gold
The early strategy shifters have made their move and are reaping the rewards. For the rest, there are reasons to pause before grabbing the nearest pickaxe and heading for the hills – even as others are noisily showing off their AI gold.
Why? Because gold is only valuable when it is finite and difficult to find. What's more, not everyone will find it digging in the same spot. Some are better off moving to the next hill. Some should even consider setting down their pickaxes.
The operational advantages of AI adoption are there for all to see. There are countless examples of expert organisations improving how they run and what they deliver to their clients as a result of AI.
When it comes to brand advantages, the jury is still out. An operational game changer doesn't necessarily translate into positioning advantage. Just because the engine is more efficient doesn't make the car a more compelling purchase.
If changes are taking place within your business because of AI, and you’re wondering how to reposition your brand as a result, here are three questions to ask yourself:
‘What’s our true advantage?’
For the past 20+ years, technology has undoubtedly been an unfair advantage. Any business that could bring a proprietary piece of technology to market would instantly separated itself from those who couldn’t. It was the golden ticket, and the reason why so many service businesses yearned to become SaaS ones.
Today, what was once out of reach for all but the 10% is readily available to the 90%. After all, the underlying technology behind generative AI can be accessed by the one-man-band as much as the multinational corporate. And the cost of adding your own layer of development on top is reducing by the hour.
Unless you are sitting on a large proprietary dataset, or a particularly complex and integrated tech stack, the risk of betting big on AI is this: What you have now can almost certainly be copied – and quickly.
So, whatever the AI play is you are looking to make, ask yourself: “Is this really where our true advantage lies?”
‘Where’s the unclaimed space’?
There are five potential positioning territories that a B2B brand can occupy – the space where it can play, and win. The most successful brands work out where the unclaimed space is, and intentionally move there.
It will always be space that is:
AUTHENTIC to their business (a true advantage)
RELEVANT to their customers (a real need)
DIFFERENT to their competition (a tangible distinction)
The problem with the AI gold rush is that everyone is trying to claim the same turf. The same claims, the same language, the same reasons to believe. The approach-led territory is where service brands are heading to en-masse – hoping to differentiate on the basis of their technology or methodology.
A recent study by Wynter put this trend into stark perspective. It highlighted how 400+ B2B businesses across 61 categories shared a remarkable 57% overlap in messaging (with 99% of SaaS websites claiming AI capability).
It’s impossible to know whether we’ve reached peak AI or whether we are still on the upward curve. But before you decide to position your brand around your newfound AI capability, ask yourself: “Is this a space we can really own?”
‘What moment are we in’?
Hearing some of the conversations leaders are having behind closed doors (about AI and how it changes the strategy of the business and the positioning of the brand), it’s clear this isn't simply a conversation about the latest technology.
Perhaps the moment we are in isn’t about the tech at all. Perhaps it’s a chance to view our business through a new lens, to ask ourselves the bigger questions – like “what are we here for?” and “what makes us different?”
The risk for some businesses is they miss the moment as they sprint towards the destination they already have in mind. They'#ve set their sights on being an AI leader in the market, or building a brand around their AI capability. The question is less “where are we going?” and more “are we there yet?”
And maybe that’s the right move. Maybe that's the moment they are in. But maybe – just maybe – there’s something else going on: a chance to discover what makes the business special, the gold that has been there all along.
Let’s all meet up in the year 2000
There are some pretty clear lessons to learn from the dot-com bubble. First of all, not all trailblazers made a success of their pivot. Some high-profile names ended up walking back their rebrands.
The biggest lesson of all? Digital eventually became normal. Over time, what was a unique capability –a distinct advantage – simply became part of the fabric, the way we all do business now.
There will come a time – perhaps soon – when AI will reach its norming stage. A time when having AI capabilities will be the equivalent of having a website in 2000, or a social media presence in 2010, or a SaaS stack in 2020.
If you lead an expert organisation, the challenge is knowing what moment you are in – so that you can build a brand that is meaningfully different from the rest; a brand that makes a promise that few others can make and deliver on.
