Idea in Brief

The Challenge

As more companies deploy machine learning for AI-enabled products and services, they face the challenge of carving out a defensible market position, especially if they are latecomers.

How to Get Ahead

The most successful AI users capture a good pool of training data early and then exploit feedback data to open up a value gap—in terms of prediction quality—between themselves and later movers.

How to Catch Up

Latecomers can still secure a foothold if they can find sources of superior training data or feedback data, or if they tailor their predictions to a specific niche.

The past decade has brought tremendous advances in an exciting dimension of artificial intelligence—machine learning. This technique for taking data inputs and turning them into predictions has enabled tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google to dramatically improve their products. It has also spurred start-ups to launch new products and platforms, sometimes even in competition with Big Tech.

A version of this article appeared in the September–October 2020 issue of Harvard Business Review.