If your pitch still leads with 'we use AI,' you're describing infrastructure, not a business. Consider that 97% of the products nominated for this year's Products That Count Product Awards are deeply integrated with AI, highlighting the extent to which the days of AI as a differentiator are officially gone. We analyzed Crunchbase data on 576 venture-backed, AI B2B companies that raised $50 million-plus rounds since the start of 2025 using Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers framework and layered in insights from Products That Count's 600,000-plus product leader community. Counter-positioning is what happens when a newcomer builds a business model so structurally different that the incumbent can't copy it without destroying their own economics. Netflix versus Blockbuster is the canonical example. Blockbuster could have matched the subscription model, but doing so would have gutted late-fee revenue, which kept their stores alive. So they didn't, until it was too late. In the AI era, this power...
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