We’re all AI experts now!
Nov 12
Where did all the AI experts come from!?
Most of them have never built anything like an AI native product.
A lot will refer to productivity boosts – but often they’re talking about an Automation Interface, not real AI.
Many will tell you that the first movers will win.
But that’s untrue.
AI isn’t electricity. It’s Excel.
It’s not the next industrial revolution – it’s the next productivity tool. Useful, yes – very.
But it will be increasingly made accessible, simplified and pre-packaged.
Access to the playing field will be levelled.
Gartner estimates that 85% of “AI solutions” on the market today are just chat wrappers: chat interfaces sitting on top of OpenAI or Anthropic, passing your data straight through their APIs.
If you swap the key, there is no product.
A further layer of “AI automation” simply moves data between apps. Like Zapier, Make, or LangChain scripts that trigger emails or update records. Even Moveworks. It’s motion, not intelligence.
And then there are the PowerPoint experts.
They’re great in front of an audience but the reality is that they have no data pipeline, no inference control, and no live operational metrics. But they will happily send you a hefty invoice to talk about their expertise ,while quietly prompting their ChatGPT fuelled PPT at the weekend.
Most AI solutions aim to remove excuses for inefficiency. This is good.
And, everyone will quickly have access to the same foundation models. They will be simple to use and affordable for almost all.
Differentiation will come from execution – not from ubiquitous products.
Almost all businesses have electricity.
Soon, almost all will have AI processes. Just as commonplace.
AI isn’t just back-office anymore either. It’s pushing hard into sales, marketing, and customer engagement. And yes, results are uneven now, but rapid improvement are inbound – especially in lead scoring, outbound email/written communications , and voice synthesis.
The winners won’t be those who bought or built these products. They will be those who use them to create something of value. Those who have talent.
Correctly implemented ideas: using a suite of tools and talent.
And AI is just one such lever.
We’ve seen this cycle before: CRM, ERP, GDPR, the Millennium Bug, haven’t we?
Each one created a rush of instant overnight experts and weekend LinkedIn profile rebrands.
Consultants have their place – but check whether they’ve actually built a working system – or if they’ve just got some nice ChatGPT prompts to help them build a deck.
AI will expose execution, not replace it. The winners won’t be the ones with the best demos – they’ll be the ones with live systems that develop system learning, at scale.
