Exactly What Is An AI-First Company?

Forbes

18-06-2025

Becoming AI-first is a leadership transformation before it's a technology transformation.
In the last year, AI-native companies such as Anthropic, Databricks, Jasper AI, and OpenAI have quietly been rewriting the rules of business. A nine-person firm reached $10 million in annual revenue in just two years. Another posted $100 million in annual recurring revenue in 12 months, with a team small enough to fit around a boardroom table. These aren't outliers—they're early indicators of a profound shift.
You've heard of digital-first. You've heard of tech-enabled. But AI-first?
It's more than a buzzword. It's a fundamentally different way of organizing people, resources, and decisions around the capabilities of artificial intelligence. And companies that get this right aren't just getting faster. They're getting fundamentally better.
So, what is an AI-first company, exactly?
Many companies today are 'AI-interested.' They're running pilots, dabbling with chatbots, issuing executive memos on experimentation. But these efforts are often bolted onto old ways of working.
An AI-first company doesn't attach AI to an existing structure. It places AI at its core and builds from it, using AI as the central nervous system of the organization.
In practice, that means rethinking how decisions are made, how workflows are designed, and how teams are structured. AI isn't simply automating tasks—it's doing the work, recommending the strategy, and triggering execution. The role of humans shifts accordingly—from task executors to AI collaborators, judgment-callers, sense-makers, and, when necessary, czar.
In AI-first firms, the center of gravity shifts. Traditional IT becomes the enabler of scalable, secure AI foundations, while the business units take the wheel. Why? Because the speed and specificity of AI advantage lie in domain expertise—knowing exactly what insight matters in underwriting, what phrasing converts in marketing, or what signal counts in a supply chain.
'AI-first transformation doesn't live in labs. It lives in the business,' says Amanda Luther, an expert in technology and digital transformation. 'You only get exponential value when AI is directly embedded in how teams operate, every day, across every function.'
That's why in AI-native organizations you won't find monolithic AI teams isolated from the action, you'll find them embedded in every function—building, deploying, and improving tools close to where value is created. The result: faster innovation, fewer handoffs, and AI that actually works in the wild.
In an AI-first company, your balance sheet also starts to look different.
Tech spending will increase significantly—perhaps by as much as 45% or more—but labor costs drop. That's not just due to automation; it's because teams are smaller, sharper, and higher-performing. Value isn't in headcount; it's in the velocity of insight and action. Operating margins rise not by squeezing people harder, but by letting machines do what they do best and giving humans more time for what we do best: critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration.
Here's the big shift: AI erodes traditional moats and deepens new ones.
Operational scale? That becomes less relevant when AI can scale you overnight. Massive content libraries? Less impressive when generative AI can create new content instantly. A global customer service team? Redundant when most inquiries can be resolved by AI alone.
'The brands that win in an AI-first world aren't necessarily the biggest—they're the ones that earn trust, move fast, and leverage their proprietary data with precision,' says Nicolas de Bellefonds, an expert in consumer strategy and AI-enabled transformation. Echoing Bellefonds, Paula Goldman, chief ethical officer at Salesforce, also cites the importance of trust, calling it 'as central to the AI conversation as the technology itself.'
As a result, the new sources of advantage look different. Trusted brands matter more, because trust is scarce in a world of synthetic content. Proprietary data matters more, because good AI depends on unique, high-quality inputs. And top talent matters more—more than ever—and not just data scientists, but leaders and teams who can think strategically with AI.
In an AI-first organization, the work feels different.
Processes are no longer linear and manual—they're looped, adaptive, and AI-led. Hierarchies are flatter because AI levels the playing field. Performance improves across the board, but especially for lower performers, who see the biggest productivity gains. Meanwhile, top performers—those who can leverage AI most effectively—create exponential value.
Culture shifts too. It's not just about efficiency. It's about boldness, learning velocity, and trust in AI as a collaborator, not just a tool.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: You can have the best models, the cleanest data, and the biggest budget, and still not be AI-first.
Why? Because becoming AI-first is a leadership transformation before it's a technology transformation.
It starts with a mindset shift: from seeing AI as an add-on to seeing it as the organizing principle. From asking, 'How can we use AI here?' to 'If AI can do this, what should we focus on instead?'
The companies that thrive in this new era won't be the ones with the flashiest demos. They'll be the ones that reshape their operating models, their workforces, and their ways of thinking—starting now.
Because AI is not coming for your company. It's coming for your category. And the companies that reimagine themselves first will win.