Agility is the New Competitive Advantage
August 11, 2026
“Move or get passed.”
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I have been in business long enough to remember when starting or expanding a company required resources that put smaller entrepreneurs at an immediate disadvantage. Research required hours of digging, marketing required outside professionals, publishing required substantial infrastructure and reaching thousands of prospective customers could be prohibitively expensive. I’ve watched that equation change firsthand. My own career moved from financial services and consulting into publishing, and today I can research ideas, develop editorial concepts and communicate with tens of thousands of readers using tools that simply didn’t exist during much of my career. What once required a staff—or several outside vendors—can increasingly be accomplished by one entrepreneur with the right technology and judgment.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating that transformation. Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index, based on a survey of 20,000 workers using AI across 10 countries along with analysis of Microsoft 365 usage signals, found that 66% of the AI users surveyed said the technology allowed them to spend more time on higher-value work, while 58% reported producing work they could not have produced a year earlier. Microsoft also found that the organizations getting the most from AI aren’t simply adding tools; they’re redesigning how work gets done. That distinction matters. The competitive advantage isn’t simply having AI—eventually everyone will. It is recognizing opportunities faster, making good decisions and executing before someone else does. The entrepreneur has always competed on ingenuity and adaptability. Technology is simply turning up the speed.
