At the turn of the mill­en­ni­um, I was co-foun­der of one of the first digi­tal agen­ci­es in Vien­na — sent from Ham­burg on loan from the first lis­ted Ger­man inter­net agen­cy. The inter­net was the hot shit. Ever­yo­ne was tal­king about it — even if obvious­ly not ever­yo­ne knew what he (or she) was tal­king about.

The bubble was alre­a­dy begin­ning to burst. The val­ley of dis­il­lu­sionment was visi­ble. Tho­se who did not under­stand what was hap­pe­ning bey­ond stock mar­ket valua­tions felt con­firm­ed in their skep­ti­cism. And as is so often the case, it was tho­se who unders­tood the least who spo­ke the lou­dest.

Today, it all feels stran­ge­ly fami­li­ar. The new hype is cal­led AI.

The same pat­terns: eupho­ria, fear, hys­te­ria. And yet ano­ther flood of new­ly baked “experts”. The caco­pho­ny of buz­zwords, tools and for­mats is over­whel­ming.

Of cour­se, the inter­net was also a com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on issue — but abo­ve all it was a para­digm shift for busi­ness models, pro­ces­ses and cor­po­ra­te struc­tures. The mista­kes of that time should be a les­son for AI.

Why I use ChatGPT, Midjourney and Notion AI

Becau­se they are as tren­dy as Labu­bus?
Or becau­se they have deve­lo­ped into real busi­ness tools?

For me, it’s the lat­ter.

If you want to use AI serious­ly in your com­pa­ny, you have to ask yours­elf an uncom­for­ta­ble but cru­cial ques­ti­on:

How digi­tal is my com­pa­ny real­ly?
Or in buz­zword-speak: How is our digi­tal rea­di­ness?

The big moose test: Do you remember Covid?

Covid was the first real endu­rance test for the digi­tal sub­s­tance of com­pa­nies — and this test was mer­ci­less.

Some com­pa­nies work­ed remo­te­ly wit­hout any pro­blems. Others fai­led due to prin­ters and fax machi­nes.
Govern­ment aid con­cea­led the weak­ne­s­ses — but could not reme­dy them.

A cen­tral reason for many of today’s imba­lan­ces lies pre­cis­e­ly here:
lack of digi­tal matu­ri­ty.

And by the way: the dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween the USA and Euro­pe in terms of digi­ta­liza­ti­on and digi­tal busi­ness models have rare­ly been as visi­ble as they were back then.

What is AI actually for?

What exact­ly do you want to achie­ve with AI if your emails are still prin­ted out?

In the 1990s, many com­pa­nies instal­led expen­si­ve CMS sys­tems — just to use them like Word. The smar­ter ones rea­li­zed: It was never about the tool. It was about a para­digm shift.

A turning point — once again

We are at a simi­lar point today as we were then — only big­ger.

And this time too, chan­ge is affec­ting the enti­re com­pa­ny: Pro­ces­ses, busi­ness models, pro­ducts — ever­y­thing, at expo­nen­ti­al speed.

Three ques­ti­ons that every com­pa­ny asks its­elf:

1. what does our digi­tal basis look like?

2. whe­re do we see oppor­tu­ni­ties that AI could bring us?

3. what risks does AI pose for our busi­ness model?