Earlier this week, I shared a throwback photo of 9-year-old me on a computer, talking about the increasingly rare experience of sitting in front of a blank canvas. (No template, no suggested layout, no prompt generating the first version for you).

I was thinking about the hours I used to spend creating things that nobody had asked for: fake business cards, desktop wallpapers, family newsletters, personal logos and album covers for albums that did not exist. The process made me more capable. I had to experiment, make decisions, get things wrong and occasionally stumble into something I thought was really cool.

This curiosity continued, and when I was in grade 2, I was brought to the school board office to showcase a software for kids to create art/design (on the old eMac computers).

I started with a blank canvas every time. There was no AI or automation. Just time spent manually trying things and learning the tools.

Fast forward to today’s topic of the difference between being capable and being competent…

AI is making more of us capable, very quickly. But having access to capability does not automatically create judgment, taste or original thinking. And as more people and businesses become capable, and at least reasonably competent, the fact that you can do the work may no longer be much of a competitive advantage.

That’s what we’re diving into today, as many of the things businesses once relied on to stand apart (research, analysis, planning, positioning and solid execution) are becoming easier to access.

“Competence doesn’t cut it anymore.” That feels connected to the blank canvas.

When the tools can quickly give everyone a decent starting point, the advantage moves toward what happens next: the choices you make, the ideas you pursue, the risks you take and the perspective you bring to the work.

Now, from the blank canvas of digital art, to business.

When competence becomes the baseline

For a long time, competence was enough to build a successful business.

(Since I’ll be repeating the word a ton here, competence is defined as the ability to do something well; combining specific knowledge, practical skills, and correct behaviours).

In business, you’ve always needed to have a strong offer, a clear customer, accurate research, thoughtful strategy and reliable execution. You did not necessarily need to reinvent your category; you simply needed to be better organized and more consistent than many of the alternatives.

But today, competence may no longer be much of a “moat”.

A compelling brand that cannot deliver is just a more memorable disappointment.

When researching for this newsletter, I came across this Circle of Competence diagram in reference to Warren Buffett, as an example:

People are often critical of Buffett's recent lack of investments in things like crypto and AI, but he's doing what has allowed him to be successful for over 70 years, which was focusing his investments on industries and businesses (areas he can thoroughly understand).

A while ago I found an article in The Rare Mind by a strategist named Alex M H Smith. It was about how AI is rapidly making research, analysis, planning, copy and other previously valuable capabilities more widely available.

AI does not need to produce exceptional strategy to change the market… it only needs to help thousands of companies become competent enough.

That’s a distinction worth thinking about. Because now…

A business that had no documented positioning can now create a reasonable first draft with some smart tools and enough briefing. A founder who struggled to communicate can produce a polished article (doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable to read or even original). A small team can summarize an entire industry, analyze competitors and build a content calendar in an afternoon.

The results will not always be insightful.
They may not even be correct.
But they will often look professional.

When more businesses become reasonably competent, competence becomes less valuable as a reason to choose one over another.

AI can make your business smarter. It can’t make people care.

Compressing the execution gap

I’ve seen it first-hand, and with some of my clients and fellow founders, AI is good at helping businesses close execution gaps.

It can turn scattered thoughts into a plan or make an average piece of communication clearer. These are useful improvements, especially for smaller companies that lack either time, resources or specialized support. I’ve even co-hosted workshops on AI for Impact for nonprofits to help with efficiencies.

But closing the execution gap does not automatically close the judgment gap.

• AI can suggest 10 positions your business might take, but can’t decide which one you’re prepared to stand behind.

• It can generate stories, but it cannot give you the experience that makes a story matter.

• It can create a framework, but it cannot ensure that the framework reflects years of doing the work rather than a clever arrangement of familiar ideas.

That’s where the difference between competent and compelling starts.

A business still needs something to say

Alex calls the next level the “charismatic business”: one with a personal point of view, an element of risk, meaningful expression and a desire to create change.

I don’t think that means being louder, more controversial or more founder-centric necessarily. But a business should have a sense of itself:

It should be clear what the company believes, how it makes decisions and what it sees differently from others in its category. There should be evidence of taste: the ability to choose what belongs, what does not and what is worth pursuing even when the spreadsheet cannot fully justify it yet.

• A competent business can explain what it does.

• A compelling business can make you see something differently.

A bit of a side note on taste. I noticed this term come up very often when the advertising and creative industries kept talking about what AI can’t replace. And it still keeps getting mentioned. I came across this graphic when researching, and pulled a quote from the article (right below it).

Back to business.

Given all of the work I’ve been doing in content strategy and with the studio lately, it’s worth sharing how that difference is especially important in your content.

Content should show your judgment

Companies can now publish a steady stream of posts, articles, videos and guides. The result is not necessarily a better-informed audience, though. It may simply be a greater volume of similar ideas expressed in similar language.

The easier it becomes to produce content, the less impressive producing generic content becomes. 

So the goal can’t just be to appear active. Content needs to make the business recognizable and repeatable in someone’s mind.

That comes from having:

• A point of view people can quote.

• Stories that reveal how decisions were made.

• Frameworks connected to real experience.

• Examples that demonstrate the work.

• Language that sounds like it could only come from your company.

Does every post need to be groundbreaking? Definitely not. The overarching body of work should gradually teach people how you think. Maybe you’ve gotten a sense of that for me, if you’ve been a subscriber for a while or follow me on LinkedIn.

Your topics define where you participate. Your perspective gives people a reason to remember that you were there.

Don’t offload the interesting parts

The risk is that businesses will slowly remove themselves from their content.

The research is generated, the opinion is suggested, the examples are hypothetical, the language is optimized. The final piece is polished, sensible and almost completely interchangeable with something any of your competitors could also publish tomorrow.

Nothing is technically wrong… the lights are on, but there’s nobody home.

AI tools can help organize, challenge, edit and distribute your thinking, and some tools can help a strong idea travel further.

What AI can’t do automatically is give your company a reason to matter.

That still comes from experience, judgment, taste, relationships, courage and the willingness to make choices that are not obvious.

Competence is not disappearing, but it’s becoming expected.

The opportunity is to build something that is not only capable, but recognizable. Not simply well executed, but worth talking about.

Let me know what you think about all of this.

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!