Owning your lane in the three-speed AI economy

Owning your lane in the three-speed AI economy

The "100-10-1" three-speed AI economy continues: frontier models race ahead at 100, individuals adapt at 10, companies lumber at 1.

Most of the news focuses on the models. Consider this past week, as Washington intervened after tests revealed Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models could exploit cyber defenses 73% of the time. Forced by the Commerce Department to restrict foreign access, Anthropic pulled the models.

But the more interesting action may be unfolding inside your own company, as some of your employees are getting good at AI. Like, really good.

There's just one problem. Those who are 5x-ing their output aren't willing to share those capabilities with their bosses. They fear being judged less capable, handed more work, or made easier to replace. It's Business Process Reengineering all over again; nobody volunteers to automate their own job away.

Yet there's growing evidence these employees should "dare to share," because building AI internal capabilities protects both them and their businesses.

As Sarah Guo points out, AI is impacting generic (“public”) and bespoke (“private”) work in very different ways. Yes, almost any generic, measurable task will eventually be commoditized. However, the proprietary workflows of companies that do difficult and important things (e.g., discover drugs, build airplanes, manage complex supply chains) will be protected and enhanced by AI, not eaten away by it.  What stays defensible is your "private ground truth"; the unique data, compliance, and institutional knowledge behind how you actually run your business.

The real opportunity is translation. That is, capturing the AI shortcuts your employees discover and embedding them into proprietary workflows. And that can only be done by your most AI-aware team members, the ones who deeply understand what makes your company truly tick.

So, for the companies that get this right, life in the “slow lane” may soon speed up. It’s becoming clear the winning companies won't necessarily have the smartest models; instead, they'll have coaxed their own people to show their hands, then bolted those tricks onto ground no rival can reach.