Claiming an “AI First” ambition is now a must for any business wishing to demonstrate a certain modernity in relation to artificial intelligence. Although the term is fashionable and ubiquitous, it remains vague, interpreted differently by different players and often used to refer to everything and its opposite, due to a lack of agreement on its meaning.
So before delving deeper into the topic of AI First businesses, we must first go back to the beginning, understand where the term comes from and how it has been adopted and then distorted, and what this reveals about the current relationship between businesses and AI.
In short:
- The expression “AI First”, popularized by Google in 2016, aimed to reposition artificial intelligence as a central element of digital services, but was more of a strategic discourse than a concrete transformation of the organization.
- Businesses such as Amazon, Netflix, and Uber were already using AI as a structural component without naming it as such, revealing a gap between stated ambition and actual maturity among certain players.
- The adoption of the term “AI First” by traditional businesses often reflects a response to technological pressure rather than a structured strategy, marking an awareness without clear transformation.
- The ambiguity of the concept leads to divergent interpretations depending on internal functions, with each person projecting their own priorities, creating a common discourse without a shared vision or effective coordination.
- Despite its success, “AI First” is not based on any clear methodological or organizational framework, which limits its operational scope as long as its concrete meaning is not defined.
A term born out of a communication strategy
The expression first appeared in a communication from Google, which wanted to differentiate itself from all the other players talking about “mobile first” by going beyond the logic of interfaces to focus on the intelligent contextualization of services. It was CEO Sundar Pichai who claimed the term when announcing the business’s strategy in 2016.
The idea was that artificial intelligence would become the center of gravity for its products. This position was intended to mark a symbolic turning point in the company’s history, a way of saying that the next evolution of digital services would be determined by their ability to learn from context, anticipate, and personalize. But this repositioning was more about rhetoric, a beautiful narrative, than an immediate internal transformation.
Google’s organization remains structured around its products and platforms, with decision-making chains and operational models still largely aligned with a very traditional approach.
In other words, the expression “AI First” is more of a stated ambition than anything concrete in terms of product or organization.
AI-first businesses didn’t wait for Google
While this is an ambition for Google, for others it is already a reality, and it is interesting to note the contrast with businesses that were already using artificial intelligence as a structural component of their operations at the same time. Players such as Amazon, Netflix, and Uber never felt the need to declare themselves “AI First”, even though their operational infrastructure, based on data and continuous optimization, could serve as a model, at least given the state of the art at the time. In these organizations, AI was neither a program nor an ambition, but a normal part of the model.
This discrepancy shows, as is often the case, that the use of this type of disruptive slogan is often inversely proportional to actual maturity, at least that was the situation at the time. Pioneers rarely claim their uniqueness, unlike followers, which does not mean that the latter cannot use it as a spur to one day take the lead in the race.
A concept driven by technological pressure
The spread of the term in traditional businesses is accelerating as generative AI opens up a wider range of possibilities. Organizations are now experiencing a dual movement, with on the one hand market pressure and on the other the realization that their internal structure is not designed to absorb this acceleration. In this environment, the expression “AI First” is above all a marker of an awareness of the discomfort caused by the pace of technology. It allows businesses to say that they do not want to miss the boat, even if they do not yet know how they are going to get on board or where they want it to take them.
The term is thus beginning to circulate faster than practices and organizations are evolving, which accentuates the disconnect between discourse and reality.
The great ambiguity of interpretations
From the moment AI First burst onto the scene in bewildered executive committees, caught between FOMO and shareholder pressure, as is often the case, action preceded reflection and everyone jumped in based on their understanding of the term, what they wanted to see in it, or even what suited them to see in it.
Business leaders see it as a signal for strategic reorientation and wonder about the place their activities will occupy in a more data-driven model. Innovation departments see it as an incentive to broaden the scope of experimentation, while risk and data teams see it primarily as a need for a more rigorous framework. Operations departments interpret the expression as a desire to increase process automation and accelerate flows, which opens up the prospect of greater efficiency but also calls into question their operating methods. As for executives, and CEOs in particular, they often project a broader issue of positioning and pace onto AI First. For them, the expression becomes a way of signaling ambition, catching up with a perceived momentum among competitors, and sometimes responding to concerns about the organization’s ability to absorb technological disruption. They make it a global orientation, even though the concrete implications are still being defined.
The result is a lexical alignment that masks very different expectations, as each person projects their own priorities onto the expression rather than a common meaning that does not exist anyway.
This phenomenon explains why some businesses believe they are engaged on the same path to transformation when they are each on their own path and often, even internally, no one is moving forward with the same idea in mind.
A concept but no framework
The success of the AI first concept lies in its ability to capture a change in the technological cycle. It offers a simple way of expressing an ambition but provides no structuring principles, no method, and no organizational model. It sets a course without giving any direction or any idea of what the destination looks like.
Until this issue is clarified, we can continue to talk about AI first without being engaged with a target vision that ultimately does not exist, or at least not in a shared form.
Today, when we talk about AI first, we are expressing an ambition and giving a vague direction, but without any engagement in terms of architecture or business design.
Bottom Line
Once you understand the origin of the concept of AI First, you understand both why the term has spread so quickly and why almost everyone is still wondering what an AI First business is. Or rather, everyone has their own idea, and it’s a safe bet that in five years’ time, businesses claiming to have reached this stage of development will have little in common with each other. And perhaps they will all be right.
In any case, the signal sent by Google has been picked up by organizations whose realities, constraints, and structures have led them to project many different target visions. As is often the case, the narrative has taken precedence over the operational, and the first step in making it a useful lever for transformation is therefore, at a minimum, to clarify what it means in terms of organization and operations.
To answer your questions…
“AI First” refers more to an intention than a clear model. Google introduced it to signal a shift toward smarter services capable of anticipating and personalizing. But this repositioning was more about rhetoric than structural change. Today, many businesses use it to express a desire for modernity in the face of technological acceleration, without precisely defining what this implies for their organization. The challenge for a leader is therefore to clarify what this ambition means in concrete terms for their own model.
The concept spread quickly, even before organizations had established a clear vision. Everyone interprets it according to their own priorities: business lines see it as a reorientation, innovation as an incentive to experiment, risk as a need for a framework, and operations as a move toward automation. Executives, for their part, use it primarily to signal their positioning in the market. These divergent interpretations create an apparent alignment that masks a much more heterogeneous reality.
Businesses such as Amazon, Netflix, and Uber have never claimed to be “AI First,” even though AI is integrated into their daily operations. They rely on data, continuous optimization, and infrastructure designed for AI. Conversely, organizations that adopt the term are often at the beginning of their transformation and use the slogan to express an intention. This shows that maturity is measured in practices, not words.
Generative AI has created a sense of urgency, fueled by market pressure and the fear of missing out on a turning point. “AI First” then becomes a way to show a willingness to move forward, even when the organization is not yet ready. The term is used to express awareness rather than a specific strategy. But without internal clarification, it remains a signal rather than a real guide for action.
As it stands, no. The concept offers no method, principles, or organizational model. It indicates an ambition but does not define the destination. This explains its popularity but also its limitations: everyone gives it the meaning that suits them, which maintains confusion. To make it a useful lever, we need to define what “AI First” really means for the organization and its operations.
Image credit: Image generated by artificial intelligence via ChatGPT (OpenAI)
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