Most owners are about to waste AI, and it will have nothing to do with the AI.
Here is why and it comes from a 19th century story.
When electricity first reached the factories, everyone rushed to install it.
But most owners simply bolted it onto what they already had. They swapped the steam engine for electric motors and left every machine exactly where the old engine had put it.
They ended up with new power and the same old floor plan.
And they ended up losing or making almost nothing from it. The most advanced technology on earth was running on the floor, and it changed nothing.
The owners who won did the opposite. They did not ask how to plug electricity in. They asked what they would build if they started from scratch, then rebuilt the whole factory around the way the work actually moved.
I heard that story from Rich Schefren, one of the top marketers in America recently, as he was pointing out how history is repeating itself today.
And he’s right.
I’m seeing owners bolt AI onto businesses that were never built to hold it. A tool here, a chatbot there, then confusion about why nothing changes.
The technology is fine. The business underneath it is the problem.
The winners over the next few years will not have the cleverest AI. They will have businesses that are actually built to use it.
Clean data, systems other people can run, and decisions that do not all live in the owner’s head.
It is the unglamorous work, and guess what, it’s also what a buyer looks for before they invest in a business or pay a premium.
That is the real shift.
AI is going to raise the price of a business that is truly built as an asset, and slash the price of one that is really just a job.
Unfortunately, most owners have no idea which side of that line they are on, and so by default, they will be thrown off to the side.
So before you add a single agent, find out what a buyer sees when they look at your business today.
That is what the Buyer’s Verdict is for. Twenty questions, a quick score on the four things buyers actually pay for, and a straight answer back.
It takes a few minutes and it is free.
Business advisor George Sotiropoulos uses Rich Schefren’s story of factory electrification to explain why most owners will get no return from AI. When electricity arrived, factories that bolted it onto their old layout gained nothing, while the ones that redesigned around it pulled away. AI works the same way. The value goes to owners whose businesses are already built to use it, with clean data, transferable systems, and decisions that do not depend on the owner. AI will raise the price of a business built as an asset and slash the price of one that still runs like a job.