{"id":1367,"date":"2026-06-02T14:00:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/future-proof-with-ai\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2026-06-02T14:00:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:00:54","slug":"genai-advantage-may-belong-to-firms-that-already-have-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/future-proof-with-ai\/genai-advantage-may-belong-to-firms-that-already-have-it\/","title":{"rendered":"GenAI Advantage May Belong to Firms That Already Have It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>AI tools are everywhere. Profits may not be.<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Generative AI looks like a startup\u2019s dream. It\u2019s widely available, relatively cheap to access, and capable of automating tasks that once required long hours and large teams. In theory, that should give newer, smaller firms an edge for challenging incumbents. But as reported in the new working paper \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/faculty\/Pages\/item.aspx?num=68978\">Generative AI and the Superstar Firm Effect<\/a>,\u201d co-written by former PI of the HBS AI Institute\u2019s Digital Value Lab <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/faculty\/Pages\/profile.aspx?facId=10700\">Suraj Srinivasan<\/a>, early evidence from public markets points in a different direction: investors appear to believe GenAI\u2019s biggest gains will accrue to larger, established firms, not their leaner rivals. Using the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 as a natural experiment, Srinivasan and his co-authors examine how investors repriced the economic potential of generative AI across thousands of public companies. What they found should interest anyone thinking carefully about where AI value actually lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why This Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If the market is correct, the lesson for newer firms is sobering but useful. GenAI may not level the playing field, but neither does it lock in incumbents forever. Younger firms might still have advantages to compete, especially in narrow domains where their data is uniquely deep, in workflows where superstar organizational complexity becomes a tax, or by partnering to access the kind of intangible capital that takes years to build alone. The market is already picking winners. Leaders must urgently build the complementary data and organizational assets that make GenAI uniquely productive to ensure that their firms will be part of them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/genai-advantage-may-belong-to-firms-that-already-have-it\/\">Link to the HBS AI Institute Insight Article<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/faculty\/Pages\/item.aspx?num=68978\">Link to the Research Paper<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/#join-our-community\">Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with HBS AI Institute news and research<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI tools are everywhere. Profits may not be. GenAI Advantage Tools Profits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_trash_the_other_posts":false,"rkv_hide_featured_image":false,"rkv_hide_page_title":false,"rkv_hide_abstract_shapes":true,"rkv_reduce_header":false,"hbsd3_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/1197386335","hbsd3_featured_media_url_autoplay":false,"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"tax_cop":[],"rkv-people-shadow":[],"insight_type":[],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>GenAI Advantage May Belong to Firms That Already Have It - Future Proof with AI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/genai-advantage-may-belong-to-firms-that-already-have-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GenAI Advantage May Belong to Firms That Already Have It - Future Proof with AI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AI tools are everywhere. 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