AI companies
Build an advantage beyond the foundation model you use
An AI company asked where to invest when competitors accessed similar foundation models and customers expected its product to deliver value beyond model performance.
01 / The context
The situation.
An AI company sold a specialist workflow product using a third-party foundation model. Customers valued its domain fit and dependable delivery. The team also developed orchestration software, evaluation resources and operational knowledge through close work with users.
The proposition combined externally supplied model capability with work developed around a specific customer workflow. The commercial significance of the company's software, evaluation resources and operational knowledge depended on how that combination supported the reasons customers chose the product.
02 / The challenge
The decision that matters.
A supplier release made visible features easier for competitors to reproduce. The company had to decide where investment could create lasting differentiation. Moving between models offered potential flexibility, but required engineering work and validation. Leadership needed a clearer link between technical choices, proprietary assets and the value customers bought.
Leadership faced a question of investment direction as well as technical flexibility. Resources devoted to supplier alternatives were unavailable for other development priorities. The company needed to understand which of its contributions mattered commercially as capabilities available to competitors continued to change.
03 / The strategic perspective
Invest in the contribution customers choose.
Access to a capable foundation model can support a product without explaining why customers should choose one supplier over another. In this setting, domain fit, dependable delivery and the knowledge developed through customer work formed part of the commercial question. The strategic task was to understand how the company's contribution related to those reasons for choosing it.
Supplier flexibility belongs in the same discussion. Maintaining alternatives has practical demands and should serve product priorities. IP strategy and product direction become more useful when they connect investment in distinctive capabilities with a clear view of the external resources on which those capabilities depend.
04 / DELSOL Group’s contribution
How DELSOL Group contributed.
A clearer differentiation thesis
DELSOL Group connected IP strategy with the customer proposition, helping leadership assess investment priorities across software, data, specialist knowledge and relationships in terms of their contribution to a distinctive commercial position. This connected investment with customer choice. The focus was the contribution of the company's capabilities to domain fit and dependable delivery, rather than treating every technical feature as equally important to differentiation.
Development choices informed by the landscape
Through IP Design, DELSOL Group helped the team explore differentiation opportunities in its technology landscape, bringing competitive context and relevant IP questions into product direction without assuming a particular feature was protectable. The discussion linked opportunities for technical distinction with the product's commercial ambitions. Competitive context informed the choices under consideration, while protection questions remained connected with the contribution the company was developing.
Control over the company's contribution
Through Fractional CIPO support, DELSOL Group connected confidentiality, ownership and supplier dependencies with development decisions, helping management consider its choices as it grew the team, evolved the architecture and entered partnerships. The work kept control over the company's contribution connected with its reliance on external capability. Ownership and confidentiality priorities were discussed in relation to the choices management needed as development and commercial relationships evolved.
05 / Intended value
The business objective.
The objective was to focus the investment narrative and product direction. The aims were to clarify which capabilities belonged to the company, which depended on others and why customers valued the combination, while weighing differentiation spending against the practical cost of maintaining flexibility across changing suppliers.
The intended value was a clearer basis for allocating resources between the company's contribution and the flexibility sought from its technical architecture. The financing story was meant to reflect that relationship, including the dependencies behind the product's commercial promise.