As AI goes mainstream in 2025, businesses and brands face a crucial choice: blend in or stand out.
The easy path? More. More content! More video! More emails! More noise.
But the race to produce more will lead many straight into the trap of looking and sounding like everyone else.
The Commoditization Trap
We’re already seeing it:
- LinkedIn feeds are flooded with soulless AI-generated comments and posts.
- Cold emails are multiplying, but all saying the same thing.
- The same tired marketing and sales playbooks, but now more! 🥴
When AI makes it easy for anyone to create, the real opportunity isn’t just more — it’s more of your best.
Smart companies will use AI to turn their hard-won wisdom into scalable, high-value experiences that command premium pricing, build trust, and win customer loyalty.
AI isn’t a shortcut — it’s a multiplier.
Too many businesses focus on AI for speed rather than substance. This looks like:
- Short, generic prompts with no depth or context.
- Prioritizing speed over refinement.
- Treating AI as a quick-fix tool instead of a productivity system.
They chase the short-term gain of completing one-off tasks faster rather than the long-term benefits of AI-powered workflows.
Internally, it’ll lead to frustration and AI burnout. (How many mediocre outputs and abandoned ChatGPT threads will you or your team endure?)
Externally, it’ll erode your competitive edge.
The alternative: Use AI to scale expertise, not just output
As AI democratizes knowledge, it commodifies knowledge work.
What’s your secret recipe?
As AI democratizes knowledge, it commodifies knowledge work.
"Create an outbound sales campaign for an accounting firm."
"Build a go-to-market strategy for a B2B SaaS product."
"Suggest a recruiting strategy senior software engineers."
"Write a blog post in an informative yet friendly tone."
The result? The statistical average of messaging, marketing, sales, and services.
Once every company is powered by the same core AI models, what will set you apart?
Expertise is more than just knowledge — it’s the differentiating factor that makes you and your business valuable.
It’s the depth of understanding that allows you to see the nuance and spot the patterns that others miss.
It’s the systems and frameworks that drive your success.
It’s the unique strengths that attract clients to you.
It’s the real-world experience that AI alone can’t replicate.
And I’m sure of one thing: Every business has a secret recipe — whether they’ve written it down or not.
The mere fact that you are here means that you have hard-won wisdom and experience that uniquely shapes the way you do business. Your customers chose you, choose you, for a reason.
And now, we can bottle some of that magic.
Scale value (not just volume)
If you’re not reaping massive benefits from AI yet, don't worry — you’re in good company:
...Of the 98% of companies that are at least experimenting with AI, only 26% have developed the necessary capabilities to move beyond proofs of concept and begin extracting value. And only 4% are at the forefront of AI innovation, systematically building cutting-edge AI capabilities and scaling them across the organization.
Source: Where’s the Value in AI? Boston Consulting Group, October 2024
But we are reaching a tipping point. As massive investments are made in AI infrastructure, distribution goes mainstream, costs decrease, and agents and AGI seem on the horizon, things could move fast.
So, who wins in 2025 and beyond? Those that:
- Invest in expertise, not just automation. They double down on what AI can’t replicate: unique insights, experience, and problem-solving.
- Systematize their best work. They build AI-driven workflows that make their expertise repeatable and scalable.
- Focus on differentiation. Instead of racing to produce more, they focus on producing better — content, experiences, and services that stand out.
The mediocre middle will become increasingly crowded. But for those who use AI to optimize for expertise, not just efficiency, the opportunity is massive.
So the question is: How will you use AI? To make more stuff? Or to make more of your very best?
You're reading a preview. Want more?
Tired of growth hacks and hucksters? Us, too.
So we created growthcurve: A newsletter for leaders in the thick of building companies.
Get practical frameworks, real-world stories, helpful templates, and nuanced advice to smooth out the bumps along the way.
Sign up to receive growthcurve every other week.
.png)
