AI means invest in brand now. AI is making markets more competitive. It makes it much easier for new competitors to enter markets – and more competition is inevitable in most industries.
Which is fine – as companies we just need to adapt to the world.
In a world with many more choices, customers go for the brands they know and trust.
We could make thousands of decisions a day – from picking where to get our coffee to deciding how to get to the office. That’s far too many.
So going for “the default” is necessary in most things to avoid getting completely mentally snowed in.
For buying decisions – that also means going for the default. And the default you pick is the brand you know and trust.
From the brand’s perspective, this little bit of mental real estate in people’s minds is a real asset. And this is an asset that is about to get much, much more valuable.
And from the customer’s perspective, brand is valuable as it allows them to pick good defaults.
It’s like how I might default to a MacBook – good for Apple because I give them my money, and good for me because I can get a computer without having to spend days researching what to get that will work well and will be reliable.
So what we’re saying is invest in your brand now – as it’s potentially the most important asset that your company will have.