The AI competitive landscape has crystallized into five distinct strategic archetypes. Each represents a fundamentally different philosophy for creating and capturing value, and each has demonstrated market viability.
The Five Archetypes
| Archetype | Thesis | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic Enablers | Be the dependency, not the competitor | NVIDIA, Apple |
| Full-Stack Integrators | Control the chain, harvest synergy | Google, Microsoft |
| Specialized Dominators | Focused excellence beats broad mediocrity | OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta |
| Domain Specialists | Owning the workflow beats owning the model | Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP |
| Focused Experts | Go deep before going wide | Cursor, Glean, Replit |
The Key Insight
The AI market has matured beyond a simple race for model superiority. The winner of the next decade won’t be determined by who has the best model, but by who chose their strategic position wisely and executed with discipline.
The industry’s trajectory favors:
- Strategic focus over feature wars
- Workflow ownership over model benchmarks
- Sustainable economics over infrastructure arms races
- Depth over breadth
The question every company must answer: Which archetype matches your capabilities, and do you have the discipline to execute within it?
This is part of a comprehensive analysis. Read the full analysis on The Business Engineer.









