A five-minute guide for anyone who wants to follow the AI fights in the news. No technical background needed.
For decades, software has been a tool. You click, and it does what you told it. The newest AI is different: it can do work on its own. It can answer a customer, write code, draft a doctor's notes or fill out a purchase order. When software can do work that people used to do, a lot of money changes hands. That's why companies are fighting over it.
Every AI product sits on a stack of seven layers. Think of a restaurant.
| Layer | In a restaurant |
|---|---|
| 7 Business outcomes | The diner pays, is happy and comes back |
| 6 Workflow and agents | The kitchen line and waitstaff getting orders out |
| 5 Domain platforms | The type of restaurant and its franchise rules |
| 4 Models | The chef's skill |
| 3 Data | The pantry and the recipe book |
| 2 Compute | The kitchen equipment |
| 1 Energy | Power and water to the building |
Every battleground on this site is a fight over one or more of these layers: who owns the kitchen, who has the best chef, and who gets paid when the diner comes back.
Incumbents are the established companies that already lead a market. They have customers, revenue and a lot to lose. Challengers are newer companies, or companies from other markets, using AI to take that business away. Often they compete and cooperate at the same time: the same two companies can be partners in one deal and rivals in the next.
Battleground 10 · Layers 6 + 7
Who, or what, does the work, and who answers for it
Are you designing work, or still counting heads?
Cards marked Emerging are fights still taking shape.
