Strategy As We Know It Is Coming To An End

The Rise and Fall of Strategy

In the age of AI, strategy won’t matter anymore. It’ll be all about your personal identity. The reason for this is, if you think about the extrapolation of what’s happened in the past, where we were lots of people working on the farms.

About 95%-98% of the human population were farmers, feeding everyone, before that was taken over by the Industrial Revolution.

From Farms to Factories

Then we started to work in factories. All of a sudden, factories started getting more and more robots, and now most factories around the world are filled with them.

Then we started moving into offices, and in offices we did very rudimentary, logical, analytical work, while at the top of the line we had strategists who thought about the future.

Is Strategy No Longer a Differentiator?

Strategy’s gone. AI can do strategy much better than we can. AI can do operations better than we can. AI can do everything the corporation was able to do better.

For free. Just like farming has moved in that way, factories are moving in that way. We have this zero-marginal-cost society, where everything that becomes digitised moves toward zero.

Meaning that the only thing that will be left is you and me.

The Remaining Value: Identity

And the way we will be able to add value to the system will be about our uniqueness.

When people say you must follow your curiosity, it means that your unique fingerprint and curiosity will be the only things left that you can add value to.

Because right now, what we’ve done is we’ve educated ourselves to fit into a system, to fit into the industrial revolution, not worried about our identity, but fitting into the system was the most important thing. But now, the system is going.

There is no more system. The system is becoming demonetised, democratised, and totally disrupted before our eyes. So the future is not about strategy. It’s about identity.

The Currency of the Future

Most people are stuck trying to figure out a better strategy. Strategy’s not where it’s at anymore. Strategy’s done. We’re dealing with a very small, linear part of the potential of what we can do.

We’re going to start seeing new business models arrive, not just economies of scale; there’ll be new types of thinking around the potential of adding value in incredibly new ways.

But all of it will always come back down to your unique individual identity, which will become the currency of the future. That’s why identity should be the thing you focus on.

No more intelligence, physicality is just a bonus, but really your identity.

FAQ:

Q: Why won’t strategy matter in the age of AI?

A: Strategy won’t matter anymore because AI can do strategy, operations, and everything a corporation could do better and for free.

The only thing that will matter is an individual’s unique identity and what value they can add through their personal qualities.

Q: How has the transition from farms to factories to offices changed the role of strategy?

A: As automation has replaced human labour in farms, factories, and offices, the role of strategy has diminished.

Strategists at the top of organisations used to be the key differentiators, but now AI can do strategy and operations better than humans.

The focus is shifting away from strategy and toward an individual’s unique identity as the source of value.

Summary and Key Takeaways:

• Strategy as we know it is coming to an end, as AI can do strategy, operations, and business functions better than humans

• The only remaining source of value will be an individual’s unique identity and what they can contribute through their personal qualities

• New business models will emerge that are not just about economies of scale, but finding innovative ways for individuals to add value

• Rather than focusing on developing better strategies, the future will be about cultivating and leveraging your own unique identity

Note: This blog post is an adaptation of the transcript from the video below.