Insights that drive leadership

We are living through the biggest freemium product demo in history, and it cannot last. AI capability is advancing at breakneck speed, but the capital being committed vastly outweighs the value being realised, and aspirations are not cashflows. This Sifted piece argues that 2026 marks the end of AI's era of innocence, as Big AI is forced to monetise harder and the question of who pays, how much and for what can no longer be deferred. The piece examines how monetisation will l

Ecosystems—not standalone firms—are fast becoming the unit of competition. They are not the same as clusters: clusters are geographic concentrations of related actors; ecosystems are role- and rule-based collaborations organised around a user job and shared rails (identity, data, APIs, governance). Ecosystems may sit inside clusters, but they are not defined by geography and often cut across sectors and regions. AI and GenAI lower search and coordination costs, turning intent

Regulating artificial intelligence has become a first-order strategic battleground, yet most policy debates remain trapped in...

This project is the result of a joint effort between PwC Strategy& and Evolution Ltd. This project draws on PwC Strategy&'s deep...

The supremacy of Big Tech increasingly rests on their ability to build and manage digital ecosystems, but power does not always translate into profit. Meta's costly metaverse experience offers a cautionary tale: by the time Horizon Worlds had been live for two years, fewer than 200,000 people used it monthly, and content creators were paying fees of up to 47.5% on virtual goods sales, draining the incentive for complementors to participate. Apple is now making a strikingly si

Making sense of GenAI and preparing for the future GenAI may contribute to corporate inequality, though it holds potential to narrow...

Platforms and ecosystems provide structures for constellations of economic actors to engage and interact as they seek to create and capture value. We consider how the constructs of platforms and ecosystems relate and explore why they have become more ubiquitous by focusing on the nature of their value-add. We propose that they emerge as a response to distinct market failures, which we identify, and we explain which specific externalities they help overcome. We also identify p

Tourism is booming, but the accounting is off. Mass tourism is damaging the planet through CO2 emissions and resource depletion, diluting local cultural identities and concentrating economic benefits among large investors rather than host communities. Drawing on research and advisory work, including the pioneering case of Valencia's collaborative tourism model, this Forbes piece argues that business ecosystems offer a path toward a more sustainable tourism paradigm. It ident

Despite headlines about Disney disbanding its metaverse unit and Meta scaling back its ambitions, the metaverse is far from dead: monthly active users crossed 500 million in early 2023, and companies from Walmart to BMW are quietly pressing ahead. But as businesses enter virtual worlds, they face a new category of risk that most are not prepared for. This Fortune piece argues that companies must take "Digital Social Responsibility" seriously in the metaverse, addressing three

From Black Swans to Grey Rhinos Last year certainly had its fair share of dramatic news, from the war in Ukraine and rocketing inflation...

From a strategy vantage point, 2021 saw consumers increasing their shift to digital distribution channels. As habits provoked by COVID...

One of the most profound changes in the industrial landscape in the last decade has been the growth of business ecosystems- groups of...

The formerly sleepy world of regulation has just become the hot new thing. Rules are being drawn up now that will fundamentally reshape...

Digital technologies and modular production methods have led to the emergence of a new generation of global leaders which cement their...

Digital technologies and modular production methods have led to the emergence of a new generation of global leaders which cement their...

COVID-19 has shown how digitization can transform business and society. However, it has also exposed serious vulnerabilities in healthcare systems worldwide, manifested in issues with tracking, managing care pathways, supporting large-scale vaccine trials, and more. We argue that digital platforms and their associated ecosystems will have a key role to play in creating the responsive, flexible, and cost-effective healthcare provision of the future. We review recent advances m

We analyze the sectoral and national systems of firms and institutions that collectively engage in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Moving...

The seemingly inexorable growth of the leading platform businesses coupled with the growing wave of complaints about platform businesses’...

Despite the overwhelming importance of digital platforms, and the chatter around their recent rise, our understanding of digital...

On 15 December, the EU unveiled the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Acts (DMA/DSA), the most thorough reworking of the...