Our competitors are screaming about their new AI-powered tools in their marketing, and my leadership team is panicking that we are losing our competitive edge. How do we address this in our next Quarterly Pulsing?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When competitors claim to move faster with AI, leadership teams often panic and make reactive decisions. During your next Quarterly Pulsing, your job is to separate real strategic threats from mere marketing noise. Do not let fear dictate your strategic Rocks. Start by dedicating uninterrupted Thinking Time to formulate high-value questions. Ask, how might we verify if our competitors are actually delivering superior value, or are they just using AI as a marketing buzzword? Frame this challenge as a solvable question rather than a threat statement. Next, review your V/TO, specifically your 3 Uniques. True differentiation is rarely built on generic, public AI tools that anyone can access. If your competitors are using basic AI wrappers to generate faster, low-quality outputs, your path to winning might be doubling down on human relationship management or proprietary data that cannot be replicated. Bring this to the table as an Issue. Use the IDS process to analyze if your current product development stage is actually lagging. Assess your market position. If your competitors have indeed built a superior operational model, determine the flow cost of waiting to upgrade your own technology. Make it a leadership team Rock to audit competitor capabilities before you disrupt your own operational processes.