Bret Taylor: Stop 'AI tourism' and start building a competitive advantage

Bret Taylor thinks too many businesses still treat AI like a cost-cutting tool or a fancy chatbot. They don’t realize its power.

Few people have Taylor's perspective on AI: he’s the founder of AI startup Sierra, chairman of OpenAI’s board, and previously served as co-CEO of Salesforce and CTO of Facebook. Taylor addressed AI's impact on competition, customer experience, and adoption challenges in a conversation with Ramp CEO Eric Glyman at OnRamp San Francisco.

Upstarts have a rare chance to close the gap

Taylor sees AI as an inflection point that lets challengers unseat leaders because of one key advantage: speed. Startups and smaller players can shift their entire business model quickly. They can respond to fast-changing AI capabilities and unpredictable market shifts while incumbents are still drafting a plan.

Consider that buyer intent is already moving from Google searches to AI assistants. These assistants go beyond finding information to making decisions and completing purchases on your behalf. That fundamentally alters how companies need to think about building their digital brands and generating demand. Taylor expects AI to change commerce as dramatically as search engines and social media did.

"I think [AI] is an opportunity for insurgents to become incumbents."
Bret Taylor, Founder, Sierra

And while AI can lower your overhead and customer acquisition costs, the real question is what you do with those gains. Where can you invest it to give your business an edge?

"The thing I would really think about is how can this actually bend the curve of your operating model? And what does that mean for your industry?" Taylor said. "I think it's an opportunity for insurgents to become incumbents."

Indeed, previous breakthroughs have displaced onetime giants. Taylor's seen it firsthand: Google took over Silicon Graphics' campus and Facebook moved into Sun Microsystems' old home.

This is the moment for founders and leaders to make their ambitious vision a reality. That makes it an exciting, if pressure-filled, moment.

AI agents will be as important as your website

AI agents could unlock new use cases in the way Google unlocked the internet.

Taylor compared this to the early internet. Back then, users visited Yahoo Directory and clicked through a handful of preselected websites. Google's search engine changed everything by making millions of sites discoverable, opening up countless new possibilities.

Agents could do the same thing for AI. Instead of customers navigating preset menus and filling out forms, agents will be “free form.” Companies should expect customers to “take your business in directions you didn't foresee,” Taylor noted.

He predicts agents will exist everywhere — websites, phones, messaging apps — and complete complex processes autonomously.

This shift creates new strategic questions. How do you market to an agent acting on behalf of a customer? How does that impact your promotional strategy?

Avoid engaging in ‘AI tourism’

Taylor sees too many companies practicing what he calls "AI tourism." They're finding narrow use cases to check a box for the board or executives rather than brainstorming how AI can eliminate operational work and drive revenue.

Instead of "we need to use AI somewhere," it should be “we embrace the latest technology to solve problems.”

“If you actually give your teams the guardrails and let them innovate within that, it can be a much more constructive conversation than just focusing on what could go wrong.”
Bret Taylor, Founder, Sierra

One big reason companies hesitate to adopt AI is fear that it will make mistakes. But Taylor pointed out that AI is still less error-prone than humans. Waiting for 100% accuracy means losing ground to competitors who moved faster.

"Rather than just focus on the risks, focus on the controls,” he said, adding that waiting until you have perfectly clean and organized data is a fool’s errand. “If you actually give your teams the guardrails and let them innovate within that, it can be a much more constructive conversation than just focusing on what could go wrong.”

To avoid this AI tourism, Taylor suggested starting with a specific problem and goal. For example, reviewing a large number of contracts faster.

“Narrow the problem down, have a business sponsor or tech sponsor, and try to remove the generality of the problem so you can put practical guardrails around it with existing technology,” Taylor said. “That's where I think we go from AI tourism to AI reality.”

Taylor is an AI optimist. But he acknowledged that AI creates fear and discomfort right now as jobs change rapidly. He recommended leaders acknowledge this and encourage employees to explore ideas and solutions together instead of issuing top-down AI mandates. This can empower your staff.

The bottom line

Companies that succeed in the coming years will be those that recognize AI can reshape their business model and take action against it. Those who embrace AI will be free to focus on delivering value for customers and growing the business instead of sorting through the mechanics.

This moment requires moving fast. AI will accelerate not only the trajectory of certain companies but the individual careers of those who reimagine how their departments operate.