3 Principles to Help Your Business Thrive in the AI Era

As the technology disrupts the old order of business, smaller firms must rethink everything except their values.

EXPERT OPINION BY BRAD LUNA AND KRISTOFER EISENLA

Illustration: Getty Images

Predictability is a powerful business asset. For decades, it has allowed leaders to make informed decisions with a high degree of confidence. Today, however, stability is not the default—volatility is.

Entrepreneurs, particularly those operating professional services firms, face a rate of change few could have predicted five years ago. New, disruptive technologies like AI have reshaped how work gets done almost overnight. Longstanding norms around staffing, pricing, and productivity are crumbling. Years after the pandemic, its ripple effects persist, with employers and workers continuing to navigate tensions between pandemic-era hybrid work models and return-to-office mandates.

Today, we believe small firms are structurally better optimized than large ones for flexibility. Why? Small firms that survived the pandemic pivoted quickly and embraced new technologies. In fact, 81 percent of small businesses reported changing their operations significantly during the pandemic, incorporating digital tools. That rapid adoption helped support more than 100 million jobs, underscoring the outsized impact small firms can have when they move decisively.

Our own experience as founders of the strategic communications firm LUNA+EISENLA also informs our belief that smaller firms are uniquely positioned to lead. Many early decisions we made from necessity after launching in 2012 have become strategic advantages today. Here are three principles to help your company thrive in the AI era.

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1. Virtual work is an efficiency engine

Long before remote work became mainstream, we operated without a physical office, despite drawbacks: prospective clients expected conference rooms and office addresses, video conferencing was clunky, and working from home was often equated with working less.

Times have changed. Today, Gallup reports that nearly 75 percent of white-collar workers operate in hybrid or fully remote environments. One recent industry analysis by Global Workplace Analytics estimated that employers could save roughly $11,000 per employee per year through remote work arrangements, freeing capital to invest in talent and tools that directly drive client value. Our firm’s team stretches across the country. Years before this shift became widely accepted, we argued for the legitimacy of remote work in a letter to The New York Times. The lesson for entrepreneurs is simple: today’s unconventional choice may be tomorrow’s best practice.

2. The billable hour is fading

AI is exposing a flaw in many professional-services businesses: billing based on time, rather than value. AI can now complete tasks in minutes that once took hours. For small firms, AI can be a helpful assistant and data collector, making complex and time-consuming tasks more efficient.

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