Can AI Really Help You Develop and Execute Business Strategy?

Many business leaders remain sceptical.

"If you use AI for your business strategy, you'll just get something bland, me-too, and copycat."

I hear this a lot. The concern is that AI can only tell you what everyone else already knows. That it's fundamentally unoriginal.

But this view stems from a misunderstanding of how AI—particularly generative AI (GenAI)—actually works.

The Key #1: It's All About the Input

At its core, GenAI is exceptionally good at processing text. It's built on a Large Language Model (LLM), which learns patterns from vast amounts of written language. These models are getting better at maths and reasoning, too. But here's the crucial point: you control what text it processes.

If you ask a generic question like, "What were the causes of WW2?" the model will draw on well-established public knowledge. The answer might be accurate and informative (depending on whose version of the truth you prefer), but it won't be novel.

Ask something silly like, "What are the political views of an avocado?" and the model will still generate a response. But since there's no real data or logic underpinning the question, the model is forced to invent—a phenomenon known as hallucination.

The Key #2: Combined with intelligent prompting

Even with the right inputs, simply asking the AI "What should my strategy be?" is unlikely to give the best results. In fact, it will just reach for the most "common" answers - exactly what you don't want!

Instead, you need a sequence - a network even - of related prompts which now how to take the raw (including proprietary) inputs, compare, contrast and analyse them, to come out at a meaningful answer. Even a very simple framework like "Playing to Win" asks a sequence of 5 inter-related questions. And I am sure each of those is supported by a cast of supporting questions.

A good strategy process will take many prompts to get from raw input to a solidly strategic output. And it will keep the human-in-the-loop at each step. Hoping a generic AI will get there in one shot is wildly optimistic.

Generating Real Insight

Now, here's where it gets interesting.

If you feed an AI model your own proprietary data and then ask it to process that, it can generate genuinely new insights. Of course, the quality of those insights depends entirely on the quality of the information you provide.

That’s exactly where StratNav comes in.

StratNav supports strategy development and execution by capturing structured knowledge about:

• Your business

• The market in which it operates

• Your strategic objectives and priorities

While a simple WW2 question gives the AI only about 9 "tokens" (units of text) to work with, a typical StratNav strategy includes hundreds of thousands of tokens. That means when the AI processes your strategy, it's working with a much richer and more nuanced dataset.

It's Not Magic. It's Engagement.

The magic doesn't happen by itself.

StratNav doesn't just ask the AI a single question and hope for the best. It chains together a series of prompts and responses. This iterative process builds context and layers of insight.

But it only works if you actively engage. You must feed the model:

• Your real understanding of your business

• Accurate and current market data

• Your strategic choices and dilemmas

When you do that, the results can be remarkably insightful.

So, can AI help you develop and execute business strategy?

Absolutely—but only if you bring your real-world knowledge to the table.

StratNav helps you bring proprietary data and insight into your strategies in a number of ways (listed in order of proprietaryness).

1. From meeting transcripts - see Empower your strategy meetings with automatic AI transcripts
2. From emails - see #stratBot in your inbox: ask questions and update your strategy by email
3. From documents and reports - see Using the File Vault and SharePoint integration
4. From curated online news - see StratNav News Hound: Strategy-Relevant News, Without the Noise and Add content with the Bookmarklet

Are you ready for the next generation of business strategy?

Ready to see how StratNav can help you create a more intelligent, dynamic, and executable strategy?

• Try it yourself for free at StratNavA

• Book a free demo at https://www.stratnavapp.com/Demo 

• Or choose the experience tailored to your role:

  • For Executives

  • For Consultants

  • For Startups

Can't I just use something like ChatGPT?

Yes, you could. All you would need to do is:

1. Develop and fine tune your prompts to get the results you need. Prompt engineering is a whole are in itself.
2. Copy and paste, or edit and upload, all of the details about your organisation, its performance, your markets, and your strategy each time you change anything. You can rely on the memory features in products like ChatGPT, but its hard to control exactly what it does and doesn't remember.

While you consider this, let me ask you a question. If you want a cup of tea, do you buy an electric kettle or use a microwave to heat the water? Or do you find a pot, get some flex, wire into your power mains, connect it to an immersion heater, and put it in the pot - effectively building your own?

It's doable, but it's hard work and there is a lot of risk. And a tool like StratNav does all that hard work for you. And we've invested countless hours in improving how we do this to achieve the best results. We also use an API-based solution so that your confidential strategies aren't used for AI model training and exposed to other users as they might well be using a standard retail AI product.

So you can focus on your business instead of grappling with the AI.

For more, see: AI Strategy Tools: Why purpose-built Tools Beat ChatGPT