Omer Kaplan is CEO and co-founder of ZyG, an Operating System for eCommerce scale.
In the age of AI, tech companies need to do two things exceptionally well.
First, they need to solve problems. Customers increasingly want outcomes, not tools or features. An article published by Sequoia argues that the most valuable technology companies of the next decade are likely to look less like traditional software businesses and more like services firms powered by software.
Second, they need to move incredibly quickly. AI is advancing at an extraordinary speed, making competitive advantages increasingly short-lived. It’s becoming more important to be able to quickly and continuously turn new technology into customer outcomes.
The last 20 years of software were about helping people do work, but I believe the next 20 will be about doing the work for them. In this new landscape, the key to success is execution. To achieve this, here are four principles every founder should keep in mind.
1. Own the outcome and own the complexity.
The moment you decide to own an outcome, you inherit every problem standing between the customer and their success. You’re no longer responsible for one product or feature, but for everything required to deliver the result.
For AI-native companies taking responsibility for e-commerce startups’ growth, for example, that means taking on all the complexity from customer acquisition to advertising, forecasting, customer support, fulfillment and more. None of those functions create growth on their own—the outcome depends on how well these complex parts work together.
In my experience working with brands seeking e-commerce scale, it is this very complexity that stymies growth. A company that is great at building products rarely has the expertise or capacity to address everything needed. As a result, they end up with a patchwork of dashboards, AI tools and agencies. This bifurcated system does nothing to remove complexity and certainly doesn’t deliver an outcome.
Law is another area where a new generation of “service-as-software” companies are taking on the complexity of delivering the outcome rather than simply providing the tools. Their customers aren’t buying contract-review software; they’re buying a reviewed contract. That means taking responsibility for every step required to deliver the finished legal work.
Once you promise an outcome rather than a tool, complexity becomes your problem instead of the customer’s. Don’t shy away from it. Creating value today often means being willing to absorb complexity on customers’ behalf.
2. AI is the enabler, not the outcome.
However powerful the technology under the hood, the customer usually doesn’t really care how it works. They care whether it can deliver.
That’s an important distinction, because it changes where you invest. Instead of asking how to add AI to your product, ask where AI can remove friction, automate execution and improve outcomes across the entire customer journey.
Compete on what AI allows your customers to achieve, whether it’s rapid e-commerce growth or watertight legal contracts. Showing the value you deliver is often more powerful than selling the tech and features that help you do it.
3. Execution is the moat.
Every major technological shift reaches a point where innovation stops being the bottleneck and execution becomes the differentiator.
The railroad boom of the 19th century was not won by the companies with the best locomotives, but by those that could lay tracks, coordinate supply chains, finance expansion, manage operations across geographies and turn a promising technology into a functioning network.
The same story played out during the rise of enterprise software. The winners were not simply the companies with the best code. They were the companies that could implement systems inside large organizations, redesign workflows, train employees and ensure customers achieved measurable business outcomes.
In the case of AI, frontier models will continue to improve and become more widely available. The advantage comes from how quickly you can turn those capabilities into value for customers.
Having better tech isn’t enough. To truly make a difference, companies need to continuously improve how they use that tech to serve customers, closing the loop between data, decisions and execution faster than everyone else.
This is particularly true in the age of AI. Since founding ZyG less than two years ago, I have seen a velocity of change unimaginable just a few years ago. The key is having the team and tech agile enough to not only adapt, but to take advantage of the breakneck pace at which AI (and the world around it) is evolving.
I recommend building toward an organization that learns faster than competitors. Speed of execution is becoming more valuable than the tech that enables it.
4. Let your customers focus on their unique advantage.
I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs waste their time in places where they don’t add value.
Your job isn’t to help your customers manage more software or coordinate more workflows, but to take responsibility for the work that sits between them and the outcome they want. When you do that well, customers get space to focus on their unique advantage—the product or idea that differentiates them—while you handle execution and delivery. In the AI era, that’s what makes you indispensable.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?