Competitive strategy in the age of AI: What changes, What doesn't, and what we don't yet know

Most writing about AI and strategy falls into one of two traps: declaring that everything has changed, or insisting that nothing has. This technical note takes a different position. It applies the core frameworks of competitive strategy — industry structure, value creation and capture, the resource-based view, sustainability of advantage — to ask what AI actually changes about each, and finds that the answer is more nuanced than either camp admits. AI reconfigures the Five Forces without rendering them obsolete. It creates enormous value that most firms fail to capture. It accelerates imitation while simultaneously building moats that compound over time. And it commoditizes execution across every professional domain, making judgment, taste, and systems thinking the scarce resources that determine competitive advantage. The note is written for students and executives who already know the foundations of strategy and want to understand how AI reshapes — and does not reshape — the way those foundations apply. It includes three diagnostic exhibits designed for practitioners.