The One Book You Should Read to Get Started with AI
A call to wake up and smell the algorithms that are changing the world, and where to start reading to prepare for it!
I have lost track of how many people I have recommended a particular book to. It is about the age of AI, not about AI per se, but it creates a solid starting point to understand what has fundamentally changed in businesses and their models with the infusion of technology. If you read the book more than once, you will also understand how the fundamentals of business do not change, but how technology opens up new opportunities that in turn cause disruptions of disproportionate proportions. We all know of stories where the giants withered away with time, the incumbents were removed, and the narrative wars proved insufficient.
What a privileged lot we are, those of us in businesses at the edge of a technological revolution, where AI isn’t just a buzzword but the tectonic plate shifting beneath our feet. If you’re still thinking AI is a tool to sprinkle on top of your business, to throw around with clients and in board meetings, you’re missing the point and the plot. We have to think outside traditional constraints, a scale that many cannot think of or think is far away, how value is created and captured and how strategic collisions happen. The book I am talking about is ‘Competing in The Age of AI’ by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani.
Order it today and read it. Read it again. Then keep it in front of you for reference and inspiration. This book rips the blinders off. I hope it lands like a punch to the gut: wake up, the game has changed.
The mistake you can make is to fall in love with technology before you even know what problem you’re solving. The seduction of AI is real, like the seduction with SaaS, or products (over services). It’s easy to get starry-eyed about neural nets and predictive analytics, but if you’re not brutally honest about the problem, you’ll end up with a solution in search of a question. The real flex? Seeing the contours of the problem before the solution even enters the room. That’s what this book drills into you, that AI isn’t the answer, it’s the lens that reframes the question. In other words, it’s also the solution that solves the problem so well that it creates new opportunities. Confusing? Understand the customer problem first, use the latest you have access to to solve it, and solve it so well because the latest tools you have are so powerful, that you create new opportunities and solve even what you did not set out to do.
Everyone wants to talk about what AI can do. Wrong question. The real shift is in how business gets done. The old world was built on human processes - slow, clunky, and allergic to scale. Enter the “AI Factory”- a relentless, always-on, data-devouring engine that automates, learns, and improves without ever taking a coffee break. The book is clear: if you’re still running your company like a 20th-century assembly line, you’re already obsolete. If you are selling AI and doing things sub-optimally or manually in the backend, why are you even existing?!
“AI is not only displacing human activity, it is changing the very concept of the firm.” - Competing in The Age of AI.
Let’s Talk Value
It’s Not Just About Being Better, It’s About Being Uncatchable. Let’s talk value. Everyone throws that word around, but most people miss the nuance. In the age of AI, value isn’t just about a shinier product or a faster service. It’s about building a system that learns from every interaction, feeds off its own data, and becomes smarter and more indispensable over time. That’s value creation on steroids.
But, it’s not exciting if you can’t capture it. The book hammers this home-don’t just build, lock in. AI lets you invent new pricing models, new contracts, and new ways to make sure the value you create doesn’t just leak out to the competition.Think usage-based pricing, dynamic contracts, and platform control. If you’re not thinking about how to capture value, you’re playing checkers while the AI natives play 4D chess!
Network Effects: The Rich Get Richer, and Faster
Network effects aren’t new, but AI is the accelerant. The more users, the more data. The more data, the smarter your AI. The smarter your AI, the more users flock to you. It’s a feedback loop that turns small advantages into insurmountable moats. If you’re not building for network effects, you’re not building for the future.
The Collision Course: When Old Meets New
This isn’t just theory. When AI-native firms enter traditional markets, they don’t play by the old rules - they rewrite them. Amazon didn’t just sell books; it rewired retail. Uber didn’t just move people; it redefined transportation. The lesson? If you’re not actively tearing up your own playbook, someone else is.
The numbers don’t lie and they should terrify you. But also spur you on. So go and read them up. How companies have started using AI. How many companies have been wiped off already, and how the adoption is playing out. The global AI market is projected to hit $3.7 trillion by 2034, with double digit CAGR, touching nearly 50% in some industries (Source: McKinsey, Exploding Topics).
The Real Question: What Are You Actually Building?
Don’t kid yourself - AI isn’t optional. The gap between AI-native and traditional firms is a chasm, and it’s widening every day. Your data and your network are your only real moats. If you’re not obsessively building feedback loops and unique data assets, you’re already behind. So, ask yourself: are you focused on the “how,” or are you still clinging to the “what”? Are you building a business that gets smarter every day, or are you just hoping to keep up? The leaders who thrive in the age of AI are the ones who question everything, experiment relentlessly, and refuse to be satisfied with yesterday’s answers.
Competing in the Age of AI isn’t just a book - it’s a challenge. It’s a dare to see the world differently, to build differently, and to stop making excuses. If you’re an entrepreneur, a leader, or anyone who wants to matter in the next decade, read it. Then read it again. And then, start asking yourself the only question that counts: what does value mean in the age of AI, and are you ready to create it?
If you’re not, someone else will. They are already using AI for that, too!