AI-fication: The Next Step for Business Competitiveness
Businesses have already gone through the waves of digitalization and cloudification, each of them reshaping how organizations operate and compete. Now, a new transformation is emerging: AI-fication. Far from being just another technological upgrade, it represents a shift in the way companies create value, organize knowledge, and build resilience. Those who understand its depth will see AI not as an accessory, but as the foundation of a new competitive era.
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Over the past two decades, businesses have had to face successive waves of transformation. Each wave brought disruption and forced organizations to rethink their strategies in order to remain competitive. First came digitalization, when companies were pressured to digitize processes, systems, and customer interactions. Those who resisted or delayed the change quickly discovered that they could no longer compete effectively with those who had embraced the digital era.
Not long after, the rise of the cloud marked another turning point. Cloudification reshaped how companies thought about infrastructure, scalability, and cost efficiency. For many organizations, it was more than just a technical choice; it was a matter of survival. The ability to move fast, to operate globally, and to scale without the burden of heavy infrastructure investments became essential to remaining competitive.
Today, we stand before a new stage: AI-fication.
Having experimented with tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, MidJourney, Suno, and HeyGen among others, I am convinced that artificial intelligence is no longer an optional resource, nor simply another technology trend. It is the next layer of competitiveness. Unlike previous waves, AI is not confined to specific domains such as data management or infrastructure. It penetrates creativity, communication, decision-making, and innovation in ways that were previously unimaginable.
AI-fication will demand more than the adoption of a set of tools. It requires organizations to rethink how knowledge is created, how ideas are communicated, how strategies are designed, and how decisions are executed. It is a cultural shift as much as it is a technological one. Companies that embrace it will likely discover new sources of efficiency and resilience, but also new opportunities for creativity and differentiation. Those that hesitate may find themselves struggling, just as many once did when they failed to embrace digitalization or postponed their cloudification journey.
In this sense, AI-fication represents not just another step in the long chain of technological revolutions but a deeper transformation that touches the very fabric of how organizations operate. Just as digitalization and cloudification once became unavoidable, so too will AI-fication define the winners and losers of the next decade. And unlike the earlier waves, this one moves faster, cuts deeper, and carries a greater impact on competitiveness than anything we have seen before.
How Will This Affect Workers?
History shows that every major technological shift brings disruption but also long-term gains. The Industrial Revolution displaced artisans and manual laborers, yet it eventually created industries that raised living standards. The arrival of computers and the Internet made many office jobs redundant, but over time they opened new sectors and ultimately delivered greater prosperity to workers
AI-fication will follow a similar path. In the medium term, some roles will vanish while others will be transformed or newly created, and overall this transition is likely to enhance productivity and well-being. The deeper question is what lies beyond. Will the next disruption be the long-theorized era in which robots work for us, generate wealth, and even pay taxes? If so, perhaps we will call that stage Robo-fication a future where machines not only perform labor but also carry the economic weight of society itself.
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