Last month I watched a three-person marketing agency in Austin rebuild their entire content workflow around AI in a single afternoon. They tested four tools, picked two, integrated them with their existing systems, and had the new process running by the time their clients logged off for the day. Total cost: $79 in subscriptions and four hours of focused work.

The same week, I spoke to a Fortune 500 company that had spent $2.3 million on an AI strategy consulting engagement. They were fourteen months in. They had a 200-page report, a steering committee, a change management framework, and a pilot program scheduled for Q3. They had not yet implemented a single AI workflow that touched actual customer work.

This is not an anomaly. It is the pattern. And the implications for competitive dynamics over the next five years are significant enough that most large companies should be worried — though very few of them are.