Strategy reinvented: when generative AI redefines strategic thinking

For decades, the strategic approach has followed an unchanging pattern: collect data, apply analytical frameworks, debate options, set objectives and commit to a plan.

This process, both thoughtful and methodical, relies as much on the art of asking the right questions as on the ability to find the right answers. The real know-how consists of bringing the strategy to life by translating it into clear, concrete and achievable trajectories. Today, generative AI (GenAI) is disrupting this model.

When generative AI transforms the strategy factory

Lessons that once took weeks to recover now emerge in minutes. Scenarios that required several days of workshops can be designed and tested instantly. Strategic narratives can be formulated, refined and aligned even before the next meeting.

This change is not just about speed, it redefines the field of possibilities. It enables deeper insights, enabling more agile, truly data-driven decisions. Generative AI doesn’t just optimize the process: it transforms the very way strategy works. It moves strategy from a slow, one-off exercise, “develop or update a plan once a year,” to an ongoing, faster, more dynamic and more collaborative process.

Here are six lessons any organization can apply to integrate GenAI into its strategic processes.

Lesson 1: GenAI is not a tool, it is a new way of thinking:

• New technologies are often seen as simple tools, designed to work faster or at lower cost. Generative AI is much more than that. She acts as a teammate with unlimited stamina, encyclopedic knowledge, sometimes equivalent to a doctorate level in certain fields, and devoid of ego.
• Initially, it is used for simple tasks but exploited to its full potential, it supports every stage of strategic development, from problem definition to research, to execution planning. It is not limited to facilitating reflection; it redefines its dynamics.
• The real turning point comes when strategists stop seeing it as a shortcut and start using it as a true thought partner.

Lesson 2: Search is no longer a bottleneck:

• In the traditional approach, strategic research takes weeks, sometimes months, between collecting reports, analyzing data and interviewing experts. Essential but time-consuming work.
• Generative AI accelerates this process without altering its quality. It can analyze immense volumes of information in seconds, spot insights that a human might overlook, and make connections between scattered ideas. It opens up a level of depth and scope previously unattainable in a pre-AI world.

Lesson 3: Strategic thinking as iterative dialogue, not monologue:

• Strategic work is always based on pattern recognition, discernment and creativity, human qualities. But even the best strategists can find themselves locked into familiar frames of thought, implicit assumptions, or blind spots.
• Generative AI helps break these automatisms. She doesn’t just provide answers: she asks questions, tests ideas and pushes us to explore new perspectives. Strategic work then becomes a living process: we try, we test, we refine, we start again, rather than writing a plan that is fixed from the first version.

Lesson 4: Execution planning takes on new momentum:

• While the creative and analytical dimensions of strategy often attract attention, it is at the moment of execution that many of them fail. Calendars, performance indicators (KPIs), communication plans or even stakeholder alignment may not be the most inspiring aspects, but they are absolutely essential.
• Generative AI is particularly effective in transforming strategy into concrete action plans. Once the direction has been defined, it can break down the strategic axes into specific initiatives, designate managers, map resources, propose KPIs and even write the necessary internal communications. It’s not perfect, but it provides a solid foundation that makes execution planning faster, smoother and more structured.
• It thus helps preserve strategic dynamics, by effectively bridging the gap between planning and implementation.

Lesson 5: The real lever is not “prompting”, it’s the context!:

• Prompt engineering is quickly giving way to a new discipline: context engineering, which consists of providing AI with a complete understanding of the situation so that it produces more precise and more relevant results. Generative AI performs best when it knows your goals, your constraints, your audience and the history of the strategic problem.
• Today, prompting skills are built directly into language models: they guide the user through targeted questions to formulate the right prompt for each task. For example, they can generate the “perfect” deep search prompt – just provide them with context. With this context, answers become more precise, more relevant and truly tailored to the organization, well beyond generic answers.
• Generative AI achieves its full potential when integrated into role-based workflows, given distinct missions, empowered to ask questions, and used as an ongoing collaborator to produce contextualized, consistent, and high-value results.

Lesson 6: GenAI does not replace strategists, it replaces old habits:

• The role of the strategist is evolving profoundly. Rather than spending weeks collecting information, he now spends a few hours interpreting it and making sense of it. Instead of rigid plans, he works in shorter, faster and more flexible cycles. An increasing part of his time is spent collaborating with stakeholders: aligning priorities, setting direction and securing budgets.
• The next step is to use generative AI in the form of a set of connected agents, each tasked with supporting a specific part of the strategy development process.
• A framing agent asks targeted questions to precisely define the problem and produces structured specifications.
• A search agent builds on this foundation to generate detailed search prompts, collect relevant data and transform it into actionable insights.

Finally, a strategy officer converts these insights into a first draft of a presentation, a strategic story accompanied by synthesized recommendations.

By redefining the way organizations design, test and execute their strategies, generative AI marks a profound disruption. It replaces neither intuition nor human expertise, but amplifies their scope. In this new model, strategy becomes a living process: more connected, more collaborative and continually adjusted to the reality on the ground. Companies that adopt this augmented approach today, where humans and machines move forward together, will give themselves a decisive advantage, that of acting at the speed of opportunities. Generative AI is not a distant promise: it is already the silent engine of a new generation of strategic leaders.