Axios C-Suite: How to beat AI copycats
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images
We're facing a new AI threat: the ability of competitors — and haters — to instantly and cheaply copy our work.
Why it matters: Good ideas can be copied by shittier but still useful AI knockoffs faster than we can possibly improve them.
- In the past, it took months or years — and lots of capital — to attack our moats and products.
- Our rivals, or even newcomers, can replicate original ideas in minutes, often at minimal cost. A smart human will spot what we did, then task AI agents to copy or one-up it.
- It's easier to do this from scratch than for existing companies to adapt within their existing systems. The bigger you are, the slower you are.
Let me use an example I'm sure I'll soon face: We're using AI to build a super-system to spread local news. Not long ago, our moat included superior design, our unique Smart Brevity format and several automated features for readers.
- It'll soon be easy to replicate much of that.
The solution for all of us: Learn how to copy-proof our most vital work. This requires a new way to think about product development in an AI world.
- We need to be brutally aware of our non-copyable elements. This starts by reckoning with how much we do that AI could do just as well or better, faster and cheaper.
A quick frame to think on:
- High copy-ability: Format, framing, wording, UI, coding, design.
- Low copy-ability: Proprietary data and info, physical product, licensed output, direct relationships, regulated solutions.
- The question we all must ask in all situations: What parts of this cannot be easily reproduced by AI?
Axios is applying this new philosophy to our local super-system work.
- What cannot be copied is our ability to hire and train superior reporting talent, tap our existing readership to convert locally, attract blue-chip ad buyers and leverage data and content from the broader newsroom.
The bottom line: We've all got no choice but to evaluate, monthly if not weekly, what AI advancements weaken our moats — and to think more smartly about what Palantir's Alex Karp calls our Alpha: our distinct, proprietary, hard-to-replicate edges.
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