Gokul argues that brand is no longer a strong moat for B2B companies. As AI makes data portability and product replication easier, he predicts switching costs will approach zero, making business customers more rational and less loyal to brands.

The biggest winners from AI will be entities with massive distribution and significant cost inefficiencies. Legacy banks and large brands are prime candidates, as AI can drastically cut their operational costs while they retain their powerful brand and distribution moats.

For an incumbent, mission-critical company, AI presents a significant opportunity. By leveraging their proprietary data to build AI tools, they can enhance their product, improve margins, and further solidify their market leadership, making them more attractive credit risks.

AI agents will automate and commoditize most purchasing decisions. The only way for a business to survive is by building a strong brand that consumers specifically request by name, thereby overriding the AI's default, commoditized selections.

Even if AI makes it easier to build competing software, incumbent SaaS giants retain customers due to immense switching costs. The operational disruption, retraining, and integration challenges of migrating a large organization create a powerful moat against new entrants.

Incumbent SaaS companies can leverage high-margin core products to price new AI features below what pure-play AI competitors can afford. This "savage" strategy allows them to absorb a lower margin on AI products to rapidly gain market share while maintaining a healthier blended gross margin overall.

Brand is becoming a key moat in AI infrastructure, a sector where it was previously irrelevant. In rapidly growing and confusing markets, education can't keep pace with adoption. As a result, customers default to the brands they recognize, creating powerful monopolies for early leaders. This mirrors the early internet era when Netscape dominated through brand recognition.

While most companies posture as AI-forward, some incumbents like Deloitte are taking a deliberately conservative stance. This is a conscious marketing effort to appeal to risk-averse clients, positioning caution as a competitive advantage against other Big Four accounting firms.

As technology automates tasks and large firms optimize financials, the one thing they cannot easily replicate is a genuine, resonant brand. This emotional connection becomes the key competitive advantage for smaller players, allowing them to "upset" larger, better-funded competitors.