The Collapse of Differentiation in the AI Red Ocean
· 6 min read
In the last post, we discussed the age of diffused agency, where AI empowers individuals to execute at a scale once reserved for large organisations. This creates a hyper-competitive environment where new ideas can be replicated and scaled with unprecedented speed. What does this mean for traditional sources of competitive advantage?
AI is compressing the evolution of software so quickly that differentiation evaporates before leadership teams can mobilise around it. Wardley Mapping reminds us that everything evolves, yet AI also accelerates the very mechanisms of evolution—communication, automation, recombination—so the curve itself steepens.
How this post fits the series
- Builds on the age of diffused agency by explaining why agency without positioning discipline collapses into sameness.
- Sets up positioning readiness as the defensive posture against rapid commoditisation.
- Connects to LLM-driven competitor simulations that rehearse responses to collapsing differentiation.