by Pete Dulcamara, Fox Cities Chamber Board Member; Chair, AI Task Force
Interested in learning more about AI? Register for the Chamber’s AI Business Summit on Nov. 3
The headlines suggest we’re in a race to build better algorithms, larger models, and more capable AI systems. While the technology is advancing at an extraordinary pace, that’s not the race most business leaders should be focused on. The real race is between organizations that can adapt faster than the pace of technological change.
Every major technology wave begins with a familiar question: What can the technology do? Eventually, a more important question emerges: What can people and organizations do because of the technology? Artificial intelligence is reaching that inflection point.
Spend five minutes reading AI headlines and you’ll encounter a steady stream of new models, copilots, autonomous agents, and breakthrough capabilities. While these innovations deserve attention, they can also distract leaders from a more important reality. AI is becoming increasingly accessible. As access becomes democratized, technology itself becomes less of a differentiator. The organizations that create lasting advantage will be those that develop the capabilities to use AI more effectively than their competitors.
Those capabilities look different than many leaders expected. Technical expertise matters, but curiosity, critical thinking, adaptability, and sound judgment matter just as much. AI can summarize reports, generate ideas, and analyze data in seconds, but people remain responsible for defining the right problems, evaluating tradeoffs, making decisions under uncertainty, and earning the trust of customers, employees, and stakeholders.
In many ways, knowledge is becoming a commodity. AI is making information available to nearly everyone, almost instantly. The competitive advantage is no longer determined by who knows the most. It belongs to organizations that can transform knowledge into insight, insight into decisions, and decisions into meaningful action faster than their competitors.
This shift requires leaders to rethink how they approach AI. Instead of asking, “How do we implement AI?” they may achieve greater success by asking, “How do we build an organization that learns, adapts, and improves continuously with AI?” Technology can be purchased. Organizational capability must be developed.
As I reviewed the sessions for this year’s Fox Cities AI Business Summit, one common thread emerged. Whether the topic is strategy, governance, operations, continuous improvement, marketing, or agentic AI, every presenter is ultimately addressing the same challenge: helping organizations become more adaptable in a world where change is accelerating.
The organizations that thrive over the next decade will not necessarily have the largest AI budgets or the most sophisticated algorithms. They will be the ones that combine human judgment with artificial intelligence to make better decisions, execute more effectively, and adapt faster than everyone else.