The AI ​​Question You Must Answer in 2026 The AI ​​Strategy Framework Every Global Investor Needs

What I think: How does your global business create value?

The answer to that question is the difference between successfully transforming your business with AI and failing to do so.

I’ve been digesting this article from Section (my favorite AI strategy newsletter), about three AI strategies investment leaders should be implementing in 2026.

But before you think In terms of investing in AI, you need to answer two basic questions:

1. How exactly does our company create value?
2. Where are we NOT going to invest so we can fund the future?

Most users skip straight to the “let’s throw AI at this problem” (raises hand) without doing a thorough job of understanding the mechanics of their business first.

Let me explain how I think about our business as an inspiration for you to think about yours.

When Global Businesses Create Value

This was harder to answer than I expected.

When I was building our ACQ AI system (an AI built on Claude from Acquisition.com, trained with proprietary data from small business strategist, Alex Hormozi), I had to be clear: Are we a service business or a physical products business?

You might think that real estate is obviously a physical product. I mean, what is visible above the earth?

The reality of most global businesses (including ours as a major partner) is this: We are a service business.

Every model is geared toward a unique, repeatable strategy adoption of the world.

The condition side gets a lot of attention (especially in this brutal consumer market we’re navigating), and yes, it’s probably the most difficult part of the business right now, on average.

But it is NOT where you create (or capture) value.

You can be aggressive with pricing. You can use creative techniques that can be augmented with AI. You can work with the best realtors in your market.

But if your purchase price is wrong… none of this matters.

You make your profit by shopping. Each time.

(Including subdivisions and value-add games. If you miscalculate the cost of those strategies, your project will fail. Also, all value depends on acquisition.)

So if you’re thinking about AI transformation, you need to start here: What is the real value creation within your business model?

That’s your North Star. This is where AI needs to make you more efficient, faster, and more reliable.

The Redistribution Question Nobody Wants to Answer

Next: What can you no longer invest in to fund the future?

This is painful. We all want AI add ability without taking anything. We want to keep the 2025 plan intact, sprinkle in “AI programs,” and plan for change.

It doesn’t work like that. Nothing can change if nothing is cut.

A few painful cuts from the past year:

• Stop using Land Pricer (it took me a lot of time and money invested, but now my focus on Serious Land Capital is sharp, and we can use AI strategies that have been put aside for months.)
• We are very much behind on Land Daily Diligence (it still comes up when it’s ready for review of syndicated deals, but it’s not a priority as we focus on market, complex deals)
• We looked at a few AI projects that we had high hopes for after a big investment (see example below)
• Various SaaS products that no longer fit our standards or use cases (Check your overhead monthly with a killer idea.)

There are no sacred cows. Well, save your dignity and stay out of jail! Those are the only two ways to destroy yourself, according to a famous mathematician Skin in the Game author, Nassim Taleb. Everything else can be sacrificed or conquered.

My Biggest End of AI (And What I Learned)

There was a 2 to 3 week period during 2025 when I spent large portions of my best working hours building the “Chief of Staff” AI project.

It was very in-depth, including over 100 free response questions that I’ve interviewed throughout my life and business.

As the name of the project implies, the aim was to supercharge our daily activities, oriented towards self-decision making, valuable advice from thinkers and consultants, and a lot of internal business data.

It was enlightening… and useless.

It doesn’t fit into our operating system. Basic data was difficult to use to get real details of success.

Now, as noted, we are heavily invested in ACQ AI, which continues to improve every week. It forced us to calculate metrics that we should have known YEARS ago but never bothered to track.

Now we know exactly what tools we need to solve our main obstacle and get to the next level. It is informed by data from business owners many steps ahead of us.

It’s better than our Chief of Staff project in every way, AND it still covers the 100+ questions I answered.

Save what you can from any failed or final project, and move on.

What $1M Breakdown Taught Me About AI vs. SaaS

Here is a recent example that clarified the lesson in the above topic of Section for me.

We were reviewing a small subdivision deal outside of a major metropolitan area in the Northeast (one of the busiest areas of the country from a real estate standpoint, something I’ve been tracking for most of the past year).

As a non-exhaustive list, it requires a deeper understanding of:

• Recent development trends
• Engineering requirements
• Local zoning laws (usually stricter in the Northeast and Midwest)
• Comparable variable sales in an area where empty space is rare
• The latest prices for new home sales
• Local income growth and demographic trends

This is not a general analysis compared to the world. This multivariate underwriting that requires combining data sets that are not often referenced.

And here’s what I found: No SaaS product can handle ALL of this yet (and any out-of-the-box LLM can’t).

This is why many SaaS tools will be hit hard in the coming months and years (this has been playing out in the markets recently).

Future is not rigid (or flexible) software with limited features. The future is adaptive AI tools yours specific needs (such as Seth and Mike’s Stride CRM), just as LLMs can be customized in each company’s unique workflow.

Framework: Incremental vs Transformative AI

The Category article divides AI opportunities into two categories:

• More: AI makes existing workflows faster and/or cheaper.
• Converting: AI is enabling workflows you couldn’t use before.

Almost every company was focused on incremental change.

It’s very difficult (and scary) to ask, “What can we do that wasn’t really possible before?” (and with the acceleration of tools like Claude Cowork, that “impossible” is decreasing by the day.)

For example, we are entering a world where it will make sense to organize warnings anywhere possible classification in the US, by the time they hit the market, they have an automatic initial footer, and the offer is sent to your name within a matter of minutes to hours.

That’s a new bar, thinking beyond what even the most sophisticated group of people can achieve pre-AI. The possibilities are limited only by your creativity and practice.

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Long Term Games

Our AI push in 2026 is our #1 investment.

That means accepting trade-offs:

• Group bandwidth reallocated to learning and use (expect some output dips during retraining)
• Spending has been redirected from “safe” investments to AI infrastructure and testing
• Short-term inefficiencies in long-term skill building (the trend in all industries will be to build, rather than buy…as building becomes easier and cheaper.)

If you can’t lead from that discomfort, your company will never reach its full potential.

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Your Job (If You Want It)

Take 30 minutes this weekend and answer these two questions honestly:

1. How does my business really create value? (Not what you or your team do day in and day out, but where the real mechanics of profit reside.)
2. What will I have to give up investing in to be able to support the AI ​​revolution for my business needs?

Be specific. Share answers with your team if you have them.

Then ask the following:

What can I do with AI that wasn’t possible before?

Not immediately. It’s not cheap. Couldn’t do it at all.

That’s your chance to convert. That’s where the power is.

2026 will separate operators who understand this from those who don’t.

Let me know what you come up with. I’m all ears.

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Looking for a financing partner who invests in the long game instead of chasing quarterly wins? We have funded over $6M in global deals with industry-leading operating margins of 41%, and are closing 100% of committed deals. $50K to $1M+ test sizes. National underwriting experience in all transactions. Full time land operators preferred.

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Originally published on December 22, 2025.