The New AI Moat Is Capital Allocation Discipline
Why this matters now The next enterprise AI advantage will come from capital allocation discipline. Access to capable models is getting cheaper, agent creation is getting easier, and business units can generate more ideas than central teams can responsibly fund. The scarce capability is deciding which AI bets deserve exploration, which deserve production investment, and which should be stopped before they absorb integration, governance, and change-management capacity. Common theme Official vendor guidance: OpenAI and Microsoft both connect funding to maturity, named ownership, telemetry, quality, cost, and business outcomes. Big Tech operating evidence: Microsoft's latest enterprise review shows scaled agent estates being managed through unified operating models rather than isolated pilots. Research: the new expected-ROI framework separates value if successful, likelihood of success, and investment required, then recommends constructing a portfolio instead of selecting one apparent...