Updated August 13, 2026 I 5 Min Read
The version of AI most people know today is the simple one. You open a tool, type a request, and it writes something back. That is useful, and for most businesses it is the right place to be right now. But it is also the earliest form of this technology, roughly where the internet was when it mostly meant email and a handful of web pages. The bigger changes are just ahead, and they are worth understanding now so you can position your business for them instead of reacting late.
This is not a prediction piece full of science fiction. It is a plain look at two shifts that are already underway, what they mean for an ordinary business, and the simple things you can do today to be ready.
From tools you use to systems that do the work
The first shift is the move from AI that answers to AI that acts. The tools most people use now wait for a prompt and hand back a response. The next generation, often called AI agents, can carry out multi-step tasks on their own. Instead of asking for a single draft reply, you might hand an agent the whole job of sorting your inbox, drafting responses, flagging what actually needs you, and scheduling the follow-ups.
This is not a distant idea. Gartner projects that 33 percent of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028, up from less than 1 percent in 2024. You can see the Gartner forecast here.
For a business owner, the meaning is straightforward. Today AI helps your team work faster. Soon it will handle entire routine workflows from start to finish, with your people supervising rather than doing every step. The question shifts from “how do I use this tool” to “which parts of my operation could largely run themselves.” That is a real change, and the businesses that already have the habit of working with AI will pick it up far more smoothly than those starting cold.
It keeps getting cheaper and more capable
The second shift is about economics, and it is the one most owners underestimate. The cost of using AI is falling at a pace with almost no precedent.
According to Stanford’s AI Index, the cost to run AI at the quality of ChatGPT’s original 2022 version fell from about 20 dollars to roughly 7 cents per million tokens, the units AI uses to measure text, in about eighteen months. That is a reduction of around 280 times. You can read the AI Index report here.
Two things follow from that. First, whatever feels expensive or experimental about AI today will likely be cheap and ordinary within a year or two. Second, capability is climbing at the same time cost is dropping, so you get more for less on both ends at once. The practical takeaway is that the trajectory points one direction. Waiting does not make the decision easier later. It just means starting the learning curve after your competitors have already climbed part of it.
What this means for your business
Put the two shifts together and the picture is clear. AI is going to do more, cost less, and reach deeper into everyday operations. The advantage will not go to whoever buys the fanciest tool. It will go to whoever has built the habit and the judgment to use these systems well, because that skill compounds over time.
Think of it like a business that started paying attention to its website in 1998 versus one that waited until 2008. Both eventually got online. Only one spent a decade learning what worked, building an audience, and pulling ahead while it was still easy to do. The gap between early, deliberate adopters and late reactors tends to widen quietly, and then all at once.
None of this requires you to predict exactly what is coming. It requires you to be positioned, so that when the next useful capability arrives, you are ready to pick it up rather than scrambling to understand it.
How to position yourself now
Positioning is more practical than it sounds. It comes down to three habits.
Keep using AI on real work. Not as a novelty, but on the actual repetitive tasks in your business, so you and your team build genuine familiarity instead of reading about it from the sidelines.
Spread the habit. The value multiplies when it is not just you. When your team treats AI as a normal part of how work gets done, the whole business gets faster and steadier.
Get a real plan, not a pile of tools. This is the step most owners skip, and it is where the biggest difference is made. Chasing every new app is exhausting and rarely pays off. Sitting down to map where AI actually fits your specific business, in what order and with what guardrails, is what turns scattered experiments into a genuine edge.
That last step is exactly what we focus on at Reisinger Strategies Group. We help business owners cut through the noise and build a clear, practical AI plan that fits how their business actually runs, so they are positioned for what is coming instead of chasing it. If that is the kind of help you would want, it is a conversation worth having.
The bottom line
AI in business is heading toward systems that do more of the work, at a fraction of today’s cost, woven into everyday operations. That future does not reward the earliest movers or the most technical companies. It rewards the ones who started building the habit while it was still simple, so they were ready when it mattered. The best time to start was a while ago. The second best time is now, and now is still early enough to be ahead.
Sources
- Gartner. Gartner Predicts Over 40% of Agentic AI Projects Will Be Canceled by End of 2027. June 25, 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-06-25-gartner-predicts-over-40-percent-of-agentic-ai-projects-will-be-canceled-by-end-of-2027
- Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). The 2025 AI Index Report. https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report
About the author
John Reisinger writes extensively on AI, SEO, automation, and the future of digital marketing — breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable insights for business owners.
