Everyone has AI. Winning requires using it well.

Anyone can buy a subscription to a frontier model. Your competitors already have. So owning AI isn't an advantage anymore—it's table stakes. The edge belongs to the organizations that learn to use it well.

That's harder than it sounds, and it's where most companies stall. They point AI at efficiency and wonder why the gains never reach the bottom line. They mistake an impressive demo for something they can depend on. They chase whatever everyone else is doing instead of the work only they can do.

Meanwhile, real dynamics are already reshaping how work happens inside your organization. Some of your people are quietly using AI to do their jobs in half the time—Shadow AI—and not telling you. Others are crossing old boundaries, with marketing prototyping software and operations building financial models—the New Generalists. This is powerful, and without direction, chaotic.

The companies that win won't be the ones with the best AI tools. They'll be the ones who use AI well—reliably, with judgment, and by rethinking the work itself. That's where I come in.

I'm Jesse Blocher, and I work at the intersection of business strategy and AI technology. With 14+ years as a professor at Vanderbilt University and dual appointments in the business school and the data science institute, I bridge the gap between what AI can technically do and what actually creates business value.