In an article by CIO.com, Integreon’s CTO John Wei makes a simple but important point. Nearly every company now has access to the same AI tools, so the tools themselves are no longer what sets a business apart. The advantage comes from how you decide to use them.
John compares it to the airline industry. Most airlines fly the same kinds of planes under the same rules, yet some run circles around others on price, service, and reliability. The plane is not the difference. The way the business is built around it is. AI, he argues, is the plane. Your strategy is the route.
He explains how the technology has finally settled down enough to plan around. AI can now take on much bigger jobs in one go, like reviewing an entire contract or a full set of code at once. The cost of running it has stopped swinging wildly, so companies can budget for it like any other expense. And the market is narrowing to a handful of serious providers, which makes choosing tools less of a gamble.
One point stands out. Despite all the talk about AI replacing people, John points to evidence that it is mostly being used to support human work, not take it over. The hard parts of a job, like judgment, catching mistakes, and knowing when something looks wrong, still need a person. Most companies are using AI to grow and try new things rather than to cut staff.
From there, John turns to the questions leaders actually need to answer. Not “which tool should we buy,” but “where is the business going, and how does AI help us get there?” Who do we want to become? What are we choosing not to do? Which parts of our business might AI shake up, and are we honest enough to admit it?
He closes with a warning about two traps: refusing to change out of old habits, and chasing every new tool just because it is new. The companies that pull ahead will be the ones that pick a direction and stay with it.
John lays out the full argument, along with the complete list of questions every leader should be asking, in his article for CIO.com: Shaping a lasting AI strategy in a fast-changing world
