Over the last decade, the tech industry lived under the illusion of perpetual growth. Easy access to capital and constant market expansion made large software companies appear invulnerable. However, the arrival of Generative Artificial Intelligence has caused a seismic shift in Silicon Valley. What was once a simple competition to innovate has transformed into a phenomenon of corporate anxiety, both psychologically and financially. The major tech companies that dominated the sector for the past twenty years have realized that their traditional business models are at risk. AI, with its deflationary capacity, is redefining the economy of work and value creation. Fearing loss of relevance or reduced margins, these companies have reacted with two main strategies in the B2B sector: creating barriers to retain customers and altering the perception of their services to maintain high prices. A notable case is Salesforce. To understand its situation, think of Salesforce as the world's most advanced CRM, where companies manage their business relationships and sales. For years, it was the core of business information: if data wasn't in Salesforce, it practically didn't exist. But the environment changed. Modern companies have moved their data to data warehouses like Snowflake or Databricks, neutral and secure platforms where they store all their relevant information. It is in these warehouses where AI can unleash its full potential, analyzing large volumes of data comprehensively. In response to this change, Salesforce adopted a defensive stance. Seeing its platform becoming a mere data entry point while the real value migrated to data warehouses, it decided to impose a "toll": a 15% fee on applications that facilitate data transfer out of Salesforce. This measure reflects a strategy of containment rather than leadership. It's like a bank, noticing that its customers want to transfer their funds to another entity, imposing a 15% charge on the money transfer service. The goal is to make it difficult for customers to leave, not due to product quality, but because of the cost of exiting the ecosystem. Meanwhile, professional services firms like Accenture and large consultancies face their own crisis. Their traditional model was based on "renting talent": sending teams of consultants to solve technological problems and charging by the hour. The emergence of AI has jeopardized this model. Tasks that once required dozens of hours of human work, such as programming, data analysis, or summarizing documents, can now be performed by AI in seconds. If AI reduces the necessary time by 80%, the revenues of consultancies, based on hourly billing, are threatened. The response has been the so-called "AI Washing": a massive rebranding where large investments in AI are announced, and employee roles are redefined with futuristic titles. Instead of offering programmers or analysts, they now present "AI Transformation Architects" or "Process Reinventors." The goal is to justify high fees, arguing that a high-level expert is needed to manage AI, even though much of the work has been automated. This strategy aims to maintain the perception of exclusivity and value, disguising traditional services under a new technological narrative. It is not true innovation but a maneuver to protect margins in an environment where efficiency threatens to turn work into a commodity. In the next installment, we will analyze how this corporate anxiety is impacting the consumer market, especially in educational and creative sectors, where survival has become an urgent issue. Source: elnacional.cat