AI’s Competitive Advantage

AI can offer a new type of competitive advantage, but entrepreneurs need to know what it is and how to unlock it. Ash Fontana, author of The AI First Company and managing director at Zetta Venture Partners – a firm that exclusively invests in early-stage AI startups, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the risks and rewards of applying AI to business problems.

They also discuss:

• Why the high up-front cost of developing AI models favors multi-sector businesses.
• Which is more important for an AI-focused company: domain expertise or AI expertise?
• How AI startups should assess the risk of being usurped by Big Tech.
• Why Amazon’s sophisticated AI regularly offers nonsensical recommendations.

@ashfontana
@azeem
@exponentialview

• “Creating an AI-First Business with Andrew Ng” (Exponential View podcast, 2019)
• “Businesses are finding AI hard to adopt” (The Economist, 2020)
• “Competing in the Age of AI” (Harvard Business Review, 2020)
• The AI First Company: How to Compete and Win With Artificial Intelligence (Ash Fontana, 2021)

HBR Presents is a network of podcasts curated by HBR editors, bringing you the best business ideas from the leading minds in management. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harvard Business Review or its affiliates.