AI Systems / Lead essay
Five AI Tools Is Not a System
Small businesses now run a median of five AI tools, and the FOMO era is over. The next divide is not who uses AI. It is whose AI is connected.
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A magazine about what businesses communicate before anyone speaks to them—and the systems determining what happens next.
Current issue · Perception / Systems / Ownership / Long-term value
Commentary
Most of the Five Trillion Dollars Will Never Change Hands
McKinsey says five trillion dollars of boomer-owned businesses will come up for sale in the next decade. The number worth your attention is smaller and much less comfortable: 92 percent of exits end in closure, not a sale.
Growth
Most Businesses Do Not Have a Marketing Problem. They Have a Signal Problem.
You are spending money on marketing and it is not working. The problem is almost never the marketing. The problem is the signal your business is sending at every touchpoint between the first impression and the sale.
AI Systems
AI That Actually Works Looks Nothing Like What You Think
Most businesses are buying AI wrong. They add a chatbot and call it innovation. Real AI inside a business looks completely different and actually shows up in the numbers.
The Signal
The $10 Trillion Exit Nobody Is Talking About
Over the next decade, roughly 12 million small and mid-sized businesses will need to change hands. The estimated value is north of $10 trillion. Most of it will not make it.