How Customer Workflows Are Becoming The AI Era Moat

Consider an insurance firm evaluating two distinct artificial intelligence assistants. Both comprehend user inquiries, communicate naturally, and perform impressively during initial tests. Half a year later, however, the first assistant manages policy renewals directly inside the insurer’s core systems, adheres to strict approval guidelines, and forwards exceptions to human staff. Meanwhile, the second assistant stays merely as a tool that employees open only on occasion.

An upgraded model might launch tomorrow, but swapping out the first assistant would necessitate altering how the organization functions entirely. That precise scenario highlights where a significant artificial intelligence moat is forming: embedded directly inside customer workflows.

Recent business partnerships and corporate acquisitions demonstrate three key takeaways for founders, investors, and corporate boards.

Workflow access creates strategic value

Schneider Electric’s deal to buy PTC for an equity value close to $22.6 billion secures software utilized for designing, manufacturing, and servicing physical goods. This positions the company directly inside customer decision-making throughout the complete lifecycle of a product.

In a similar fashion, the Synopsys and OpenAI collaboration demonstrates the same underlying strategy by merging advanced artificial intelligence with established semiconductor design tools and specialized knowledge, backed by licensing arrangements and revenue sharing.

These corporate deals emphasize the strategic importance of controlling the exact environment where AI performs practical tasks. Enterprises already integrated within intricate industries offer the customer trust, industry knowledge, and dependable processes that AI creators require to successfully market their software.

For startup founders, this indicates the importance of establishing a foothold inside a specialized customer workflow. For legacy enterprises, it presents a chance to leverage current workflow access into increased negotiating leverage.

Completing recurring work builds defensibility

ElevenLabs shared that its AI agents manage over 15 million weekly conversations—encompassing refunds, insurance renewals, and medical appointment scheduling—while simultaneously disclosing an employee share buyback at a valuation of $22 billion. This practical implementation is especially critical to the discussion surrounding competitive moats. Once an application links to backend systems, complies with security permissions, manages operational exceptions, and dependably executes duties, swapping it out entails complex migration, testing, staff retraining, and notable business risk.

This dynamic enhances client retention and opens doors to manage additional business processes. Still, simple integration offers minimal safeguarding on its own. Users must genuinely rely on the solution and track the tangible value it generates. Consequently, investors ought to analyze the volume of routine tasks handled by the platform, the specific procedures dependent on it, and the true cost of switching providers.

Companies can acquire their way into workflows

ServiceNow’s purchase of Moveworks merges an AI assistant and corporate search capabilities with established business process automation. At the time of closing, Moveworks served 5.5 million workers, with roughly 250 clients already utilizing the platforms of both firms concurrently.

The primary strategic advantage is linking internal staff requests straight to the applications and procedures that fulfill them across human resources, information technology, and other departments. This establishes a distinct corporate development strategy: pinpoint the customer workflows the business aims to infiltrate, evaluate the obstacles, and determine if an alliance or buyout can speed up market entry.

A promising acquisition candidate typically supplies proprietary technology, client connections, system integrations, and a well-established function in everyday business operations.

Due diligence must evaluate how heavily clients rely on the tool, whether those client bonds will persist post-acquisition, and if the unified product can produce quantifiable enhancements. As AI features advance, securing the ideal positioning inside client operations may prove to be an effective pathway toward lasting expansion.

Itay Sagie is a strategic adviser to tech companies, investors, CEOs and boards, specializing in strategy, growth and M&A. He is a guest contributor to Crunchbase News and a university lecturer on strategy, finance and entrepreneurship. Learn more at SagieCapital.com and connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Illustration: Dom Guzman