If you want to understand why AI strategy is so tricky right now, look at what the industry leaders are doing. They are not just building bigger models anymore. They are building ecosystems, and they’re moving fast.
This is the first of the Four Forces from our whitepaper, ‘The Four Forces Shaping Enterprise AI’. It’s also the one that sets the tempo for everyone else.
A year ago, the race was about size and power. Who could build the smartest, most capable model. That era hasn’t ended, but the focus has shifted. The big players are now locking their sights on monetisation, market control and service layers that reach deep into the enterprise stack.
Take Google for instance. Always strong in AI but a little late to the generative party. Their latest Gemini releases, VEO for video creation, Code Assist and CLI tools show a clear strategy: wrap powerful models in enterprise-ready services. OpenAI is doing something similar through ChatGPT Enterprise and ecosystem partnerships. Meta, on the other hand, is pushing open models to change the economics for developers and shift where value accrues. Different strategies, same objective: shape the market before anyone else gets a chance.
This matters more than most leadership teams realise. These moves don’t just change the technology options. They quietly rewrite the economics and strategic control points of entire industries. Too many boardrooms where are currently evaluating AI platforms as if they were simple IT tools. This couldn’t be further from the truth. These are emerging power structures. The choices made now will shape your organisation’s flexibility for years.
Three dynamics are unfolding right now:
- Platforms are becoming ecosystems: Large models are turning into full-stack environments, complete with APIs, developer tools, workflow engines and integration layers. They are no longer tools you plug in and forget. They are operating systems for enterprise AI. Once you’re in, you’re in deep. The risk isn’t just commercial, though that’s part of it. Long-term contracts, bundled pricing, and volume commitments, they all add friction. But the real constraint is flexibility. You end up tied to one supplier’s rhythm, roadmap and rules, even when a better option appears somewhere else
- Competitive moats are shifting: Start-ups that once thrived on early model access are now being overtaken by platform-native products. Even seasoned players like Inflection AI have had to pivot as the giants move the goalposts. What was once a moat can dry up overnight. For leaders, this means the idea of a “safe” long-term bet is gone. The pace of change means your differentiation today could be someone else’s baseline tomorrow. Strategy has to be fluid enough to evolve with the ecosystem, not against it
- Procurement cycles can’t keep up: By the time a traditional RFP process finishes, the model landscape has already shifted again. This market doesn’t wait for corporate governance. If your process takes six months, you’re making decisions on technology that’s already outdated.
So what should leaders do? Here are three practical actions for your leadership team:
- Avoid single-platform bets: Pick partners, not masters. Design architectures that give you the option to change direction without starting again from zero.
- Watch the service layers closely: The real power plays are happening above the model layer. Keep an eye on what gets bundled into these platforms and how it might affect your data, talent, and integration strategies.
- Negotiate flexibility, not just price: Push for data portability, API openness, and clear exit routes. These details sound technical, but they’re strategic levers.
GenAI model innovation is not a passing trend. It’s a structural force. Industry leaders are setting the rules of the game in real time. If your strategy is built on static assumptions, you’ll be reacting to moves that have already been made.
In our next article, we will be exploring the second and third forces: Incumbent applications and personal AI applications. Two forces that are creating some of the most interesting internal tensions inside large organisations right now.
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