Most leaders still associate Generative AI (GenAI) solely with efficiency – shaving hours off routine tasks. Countless case studies show its ability to streamline work: from three hours saved producing marketing content to a 9% time reduction using it to code.
What once felt like an experimental tool on the fringe is now mainstream, and increasingly central to competitive advantage.
But efficiency is only the beginning. The real promise of GenAI lies in improving decision making and shaping long-term direction. Beyond productivity gains, businesses are discovering its strategic value — transforming market analysis, fuelling product innovation and revealing new growth opportunities.
When it comes to what GenAI can offer, the best is yet to come.
Transforming market and competitive insight
Market and competitive analysis is often constrained by the volume and quality of data. Analysts often drown in information before they discover true insights.
GenAI helps overcome this challenge. Automated data collection and real-time analysis save time. But the bigger gain is judgement. GenAI tools can integrate financial reports, customer sentiment and competitor filings to help leaders assess competitors and their strategies.
It can also evaluate synergies across companies. For example, by identifying promising acquisition targets and predicting post-merger performance, it can help leaders make informed M&A decisions. When the stakes are high, the right insights matter.
Uncovering tomorrow’s opportunities today
By analysing both historical and real-time data, GenAI can spot emerging shifts in consumer behaviour, technological adoption or regulatory change, often before humans can.
A real-world example of this is GenScript ProBio, a provider of antibody and gene therapy development services, which cut its research time from six months to less than two weeks after implementing AI for market analysis.
Despite this, like any powerful tool, GenAI demands scepticism. A Boston Consulting Group study found that 90% of participants improved creative ideation with GenAI, but performance in business problem solving fell by 23% due to participants trusting misleading outputs. While the technology is advanced, the challenge lies in our human judgment.
From vulnerability to resilience
For risk managers, the stakes have never been higher with emerging cyber threats, regulatory overhauls and an unpredictable geopolitical landscape.
GenAI helps identify, analyse and mitigate strategic risks by processing historical data, market trends and real-time information. Using this information, it can simulate scenarios such as economic shocks, supply chain disruption or competitor moves, enabling companies to build more robust contingency plans.
GenAI’s value extends beyond external threats. 89% of professionals in risk, fraud and compliance recognise the advantages of AI when it comes to internal compliance.
For those on the front-line of risk, GenAI is transformative in helping navigate an increasingly complex risk landscape.
From adoption to advantage
Generative AI is now a strategic force reshaping how organisations operate, innovate and compete. But adoption alone isn’t enough.
Business leaders must integrate AI into workflows, invest in training that sharpens judgement and skills and establish processes to ensure outputs are verifiable and explainable. Success will require treating GenAI as an evolving capability – measuring progress, refining approaches and adapting as the technology advances. Once in place, organisations can move beyond using GenAI solely for time saving. Instead, the technology can become a strategic partner, helping leaders make better, more informed decisions.
Sarah Hoffman
Sarah Hoffman is Director of Research, AI at AlphaSense. With a career spanning two decades in AI, machine learning, natural language processing, and other technologies, Sarah’s expertise has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, VentureBeat and on Bloomberg TV.
