Competing in the Age of AI:

Virtual  |  Oct. 3, 2025  |  11:00 AM - 12:15 PM CDT  

Board members and executives joined virtually for one of our most highly rated and well-attended programs of the year, exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping the foundations of business strategy, competition, and governance. Drawing on insights from Marco Iansiti and Karim Lakhani’s book Competing in the Age of AI, the discussion examined what defines an “AI company,” how transformation occurs, and the ethical and strategic challenges that arise.

Panelists emphasized that AI is transforming work and expertise, not just technology, and highlighted the board’s role in guiding business architecture and encouraging management to build scalable “AI factories” that deliver predictions, pattern recognition, and process automation. Attendees gained practical insight into closing the gap between rapid technological advancement and slower organizational adoption through continuous learning and hands-on engagement. The session underscored the board’s responsibility to balance enablement and risk, lead on responsible AI governance, and stay anchored to purpose in an AI-driven world.

Key Topics Covered

• AI beyond hype: simultaneous supply and demand shocks driving adoption

• AI as expertise: reframing from speeds and feeds to provision of expertise

• Business architecture shift: business model and operating model implications

• Case example (Ant Group): product, network, and data value; “3-1-0” ambition; AI factory outputs

• From silos to platforms: collision of traditional firms with platform-centric organizations

• Evidence from randomized trials: BCG and P&G results on where AI helps and where it hurts

• Governance and risk: human-in-the-loop, clinical-trial mindset, probabilistic vs deterministic tools

• Absorption gap: exponential model progress vs linear organizational adoption

• Leadership playbook: Learn, Do, Imagine, Change, Care

• Budget-cycle context and responsible AI: parallels to the internet era and the board as a key guardrail

Key Takeaways

• Treat AI as an expertise shock and redesign workflows to reflect it

• Use pilots and RCTs to quantify value, define inside-the-frontier use, and set guardrails

• Build an AI factory that scales predictions, pattern recognition, and process automation

• Set ambitious operating metrics to activate the data to algorithm to service flywheel

• Close the absorption gap with hands-on director and management learning and doing

• Balance risk control with enablement to capture value from replacement, augmentation, and transformation

• Pair GenAI with deterministic tools and require checking the work in precision domains

• Design teams intentionally: individuals with AI can match teams, but trained teams with AI produce the top ideas

• Benchmark against competitors with AI and the pace of AI, and watch for AI-native entrants

• Lead on responsible AI through values, incentives, and accountability aligned to long-term strategy

Program Videos

Competing in the Age of AI—Algorithms, Networks & the Nature of the Firm: Full Program Video | Recorded Oct. 3, 2025

The AI Supply Shock: Why Every Company Needs an AI Factory | Recorded Oct. 3, 2025

From Netscape to ChatGPT: The AI Budget Boom Explained | Recorded Oct. 3, 2025

AI ROI, Sustainability & Risk: What Boards and CEOs Need to Know | Recorded Oct. 3, 2025

The Power of Perspective: Insights from Attendees

Coming soon.

Program Resources

• Implementing AI Governance
• Tuning Corporate Governance for AI Adoption
• 2025 Public Company Board Practices and Oversight Survey | Survey Analysis: AI
• Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership when Algorithms and Networks Run the World

Panelists

Advisor, KUNGFU.AI; Advisory Board Member, The Headstrong Project, NACD Texas TriCities Chapter - Austin

Ralph Hasson, NACD.DC

Ralph Hasson is an Advisor to KUNGFU.AI, a leading consulting and engineering firm focused exclusively on artificial intelligence. He supports the KUNGFU.AI team in developing AI solutions for corporate boards.…

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Director, Cloudflare, VideaHealth; Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Dr. Karim R. Lakhani

Karim R. Lakhani is the Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is the (co)founder of several Harvard-wide research and educational initiatives centered around the intersection of technological innovation, artificial intelligence (AI) and strategy...

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Co-Founder & CEO, KUNGFU.AI

Stephen Straus

Stephen Straus is a serial entrepreneur and former venture capitalist who has started, ran, and successfully sold two companies. He was also a Kauffman Fellow and a general partner at Austin Ventures, at the time the largest venture capital between the two coasts, during the dot-com boom and bust. He is a graduate of Colgate University and received his master of business administration from Harvard Business School…

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