WATCH · AI & Automation_
They’re Not Selling You AI. They’re Selling You the Fear of Not Having It.
Saleem Beg · Founder, Teque
● 1:54 · Posted 3 months ago
KEY TAKEAWAYS_
- The fear that drives technology trend purchases is real — the early adopters did pull ahead
- Buying the label doesn't get you the same result as understanding the application
- Before any trend investment: what specific outcome would this change in my specific business?
TRANSCRIPT_
Every 5 years, the technology industry produces a new word that makes every CEO feels simultaneously excited and behind. The word has changed a lot, but the feeling it sells has never changed once. Digital, cloud, transformation, AI, each time the mechanism is identical, a genuine capability gets turned into a status signal. The question shifts from what does this do for my business to do
we have a strategy for this? And the moment it becomes a strategy question rather than a business question, the vendors win because they're not selling you a capability. They're selling you relief from the anxiety of being left behind. Why does this keep working?
Because the fear is real. The businesses that genuinely invested in digital capability in 2005 did pull ahead. The ones that moved to cloud infrastructure early did get an efficiency advantage. The technology was real. The mistake is assuming that buying the label gets you the same result as understanding the application.
So here's what better looks like. When the next trend arrives, and it will ask one question before anything else, what specific outcome would this change for my specific business? Not what could it do in theory, but what would be different here in this company with these customers and this team? If nobody around you can answer that question, the word isn't ready for you yet. And that's
absolutely fine.
“The fear is real. The businesses that genuinely invested in digital capability in 2005 did pull ahead.”
Prefer to read? This take is also a written article.
Read the article →
