It seems that more and more boards and founders view AI as a valuation enhancer and future-proof strategy. While I agree that for some companies this may be true, in other cases I think it may actually be destroying the company's value. AI does not automatically increase exit value. In some cases, it can reduce differentiation, compress margins, complicate diligence and make a company more difficult to acquire. Like pricing, customer service or go-to-market strategy, AI requires a careful balancing act between speed and defensibility, innovation and complexity, short-term productivity and long-term strategic value. Many startups are rapidly adding AI copilots, model integrations, orchestration layers, prompt libraries, vector databases and third-party AI tools across the organization. This may accelerate product development and help teams ship faster. However, from the perspective of an acquirer, it can also create a more complicated architecture. During due diligence, buyers care...
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