Time to hide the AI?

I strode into the NZ Tech Expo last week like a lion tamer, not with a chair and whip, but a bag of tasty meaty morsels.

AI dominates our conversation in tech right now, and it's safe to say that the tech industry is entranced. Contrarian as ever, I was there to convince them to drop any mention of it from their positioning. It was a fun day, but as our discussions demonstrated, the topic wasn't quite as unhinged as one might first expect.

The age of mass adoption

When I asked the room who has adopted AI into their products or operations, hands shot up without exception. When I questioned who proactively tells their customers about their AI, almost everybody raised their hand again. We use AI almost ubiquitously in pitch decks and websites to describe the potency of our products or the efficiency of our operations.

AI has been adopted as a positioning term by the tech sector en masse. It's a reflex action and unless we start to consider what we are saying more closely, we all risk becoming less differentiated.

I accept that AI didn't end up in our messaging by accident, it earned its place in our tech stack, our CX or operations. AI is unquestionably powerful tech, so if we believe it gives our business a competitive edge, we say so. But unless you're literally in the business of AI, building your own LLM, "AI" is an abstract claim that an uninformed customer can't do much with.

AI is a description of a category of tech, not a benefit.

It doesn't reflect your customer need, nor adequately express the benefit that customer is shopping for. To be brutal, all AI signals is the adoption of a type of tool, albeit one with a long list of vague, assumed advantages.

And therein lies the issue. We use AI to describe a customer benefit that the customer does not ask for or recognise. We make claims about a tool we use, not the comparative benefits to customers.

I'd argue that AI is not a customer benefit at all.

What was the original signal?

For most of us, our first addition of AI to product or business positioning was an early adopter flag. I can testify to the pressure to not appear to be left behind; I've worked on projects where we were positioning an AI enabled product where the exact competitive benefit wasn't clear. This is completely understandable, in tech our customers expect us to operate on the leading edge and our shareholders go nuts if we appear to be left behind.

So early adoption signalling is an acceptable strategy, except that it comes with a huge Achilles heel; you've got to be early to get the benefit. Datacom's 2026 State of AI Index found AI adoption at 91% right now. A market with almost universal penetration of a tech isn't one where anybody gets dibs on early adoption, regardless of how well you're using it. And on that point, the same Datacom survey noted that only 4% of adopters in NZ had transformed their business with it yet.

A new phase

High penetration AI heralds a new era and creates a bit of a positioning crunch for us all. Frankly we should have seen this coming. Tech adoption always moves from novelty to utility, except this time it's impacting us all at the same time. Last precedent for this might be the cloud or even the revolutionary laptop PC, although that is showing my age. Windows 95 memories anybody?

So how should we respond now that the window has closed on the first advantage of positioning with AI? First, be aware that signalling early adoption once AI is a utility will make you look like the laggard. Stop using it as a noun. At the very least, be very specific in the AI benefits that you choose to highlight.

Secondly, be aware of how your customer's understanding of AI is evolving. I'm generalising, but where you see the advantage the tech brings you, your customer just sees the category label. Critically, that label is commonly read as "powerful tech". This misnomer really matters, as everybody describes the AI in their product or business, the category term becomes a common denominator for tech efficacy.

From the outside, every product that positions with "AI" appears to a customer to have the same power or potential. This of course is nonsense, all products are different, but remember that your real positioning is what lives in your customer's mind.

So to your customer, AI = AI. Universal use of the term actively undermines your ability to convince customers that your tech is superior. As comparative-sales is central to every tech product, so this is an active issue to avoid.

Boldly beyond AI?

Back at the expo, I asked some execs what was left to differentiate their products with if they deleted every mention of AI from customer comms. Sobering conversation perhaps, but it made us all question the efficacy of our current positioning and highlighted a new direction.

When a powerful technology becomes the common denominator for a whole sector, anything that it can't do well becomes the primary source of differentiated value. And so as a leader, every person in your business represents a choice you made to make part of your product or service specifically human. So whether founder, employee, partner or contractor, each thing we do that an AI can't creates potential for differentiation.

Perhaps the humble .ppt org chart is about to become a guide to your future positioning?

Get comfortable with the question

If you have AI in your positioning, there is no doubt that it's time to review. Start by exploring what lies beyond, asking your people what they do that can't be commoditised by an agent. This might be a challenging one to ask as agents replace roles, but it's essential.

Take this question, ask it again and again over the coming months.

Because each time you ask, your team will uncover the many expressions of customer value that will become the foundation for your positioning in a fully AI optimised world.

It may be the fastest way to stand apart from your competitors again.

Article from the September 2026 re:position

Sign up below if you'd like to receive this in your inbox next time.