Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Help me prepare and run the exercise below. First ask for my participant count, time, setting, access needs and intended result. Check these against the stated limits. Use the supplied rules and materials. Explain any proposed changes before using them, and label them as adaptations. Do not invent source claims or require personal disclosure. Give me one step at a time when I say start. I manage the people, physical activity and clock; do not claim to observe the room. Ask me what happened before choosing a next step.

Reference revision: c6c40c36bbf7f511130049055c102879a627454a833e0805d82e3f531f774e01

# How Might AI Change Our Competitive Advantage?

Teams map current business strengths, evaluate specific AI opportunities and threats, and place them on an impact-versus-urgency grid. The session finishes with individual action plans, a structured debrief, and paired accountability commitments.

**Time:** 120 minutes. 120 minutes matching the source workshop format.
**People:** 8 to 16. Subgroups of 3 to 5 participants for table drafting (for example, two tables of 4 for 8 people; two tables of 4 and one of 5 for 13; four tables of 4 for 16), plenary for grid consolidation and debrief, and pairs (with one trio if odd) for final commitment.

## Choose this exercise

**Purpose:** Map and prioritize AI opportunities and threats against existing competitive strengths to produce assigned immediate action items.
**Use it when:** Use when a cross-functional leadership or strategy group needs to ground abstract conversations about artificial intelligence in current business position and concrete operational threats.
**Skip it when:** Skip when an organization lacks a defined business model and baseline value proposition, or when the goal is technical software architecture rather than market strategy.

## Materials and tools

- 1 printed AI Advantage Action Worksheet per participant
- Sticky notes in three colors (yellow for advantages, green for opportunities, pink for threats) - 2 pads of each color per subgroup
- Felt-tip markers - 1 per participant
- Painter tape for hanging paper
- 1 large wall whiteboard or 2 joined large flipchart pads for the central 2x2 grid
- 2 flipchart easel pads per subgroup
- Shared digital whiteboard template and camera if running hybrid

## Before participants arrive

1. Draw a large 2x2 grid on a plenary wall whiteboard, joined flipchart pads, or digital canvas (Vertical: High to Low Impact; Horizontal: Immediate Urgency to Long-term).
2. Arrange room into tables of 3 to 5 participants with sticky notes and markers.
3. Place one printed worksheet at each seat.
4. For hybrid setups, designate a co-facilitator or volunteer as hybrid scribe to mirror physical subgroup notes onto the digital board in real time during Steps 2 through 4, preparing for Step 5.

## Say this to open

Welcome. Today we will assess how artificial intelligence touches our current strengths and market vulnerabilities. We will map our existing advantages, brainstorm concrete AI opportunities and threats, position them on a shared grid, and commit to immediate next steps. Let us begin by examining recent shifts across our industry.

## How to run it

### 1. Set Context and Industry Shifts (10 minutes)

Deliver the opening script. Ask participants to form pairs at their tables (or one trio if a table has 3 or 5 people) and share one AI deployment or trend they observed in peer companies or competitors over the past six months. Call on 3 participants to share an example with the whole room.

### 2. Map Current Competitive Advantages (15 minutes)

Direct subgroups to write current organizational strengths on yellow sticky notes, with one clear idea per note. Prompt: What specific capabilities or assets lead clients to pick us today? For example, proprietary customer history, rapid local response, or specialized industry licensing. Have each subgroup cluster duplicate notes on their table pad and select their top 3 or 4 advantages.

### 3. Explore AI Opportunities (15 minutes)

Instruct subgroups to generate specific ways AI could enhance those existing advantages or unlock adjacent capabilities. Write these on green sticky notes. For instance, if an advantage is rapid response, an opportunity could be an automated triage model for tier-one support requests. Subgroups select their top 2 concrete opportunities.

### 4. Surface AI Threats (15 minutes)

Instruct subgroups to write potential AI risks and competitor moves on pink sticky notes. Prompt: How could a new entrant or legacy competitor use AI to undercut our pricing, automate our primary deliverable, or eliminate our key differentiator? Subgroups select their top 2 operational threats.

### 5. Build the AI Advantage Map (20 minutes)

Bring the room together around the central 2x2 grid (Impact vertical, Urgency horizontal). Have each subgroup post their top 2 green opportunities and top 2 pink threats. Guide the room to place items across all four quadrants based on business impact and execution urgency. Group duplicates and establish common placement across the entire grid.

### 6. Draft Personal Action Plans (15 minutes)

Direct participants to refer to the central grid and complete their AI Advantage Action Worksheet. Each person selects one priority opportunity and one priority threat. They draft concrete steps to run in the next 14 days, identify collaborators, and set an initial completion milestone.

### 7. Debrief the Map (15 minutes)

Facilitate a plenary debrief using the central grid. Ask 2 or 3 participants to respond to the prepared debrief questions, highlighting priority trade-offs, defensive gaps, and fast-learning opportunities.

### 8. Commit with Accountability Partners (15 minutes)

Have participants form pairs with someone from a different subgroup. If there is an odd number of participants, form exactly one trio. Partners swap worksheets, review each other's chosen opportunity and threat, and write their partner's name under Accountability Partner. Each pair agrees on a mutual check-in date within 14 days and confirms commitment aloud before closing.


## Debrief questions

- Looking at the high-impact, high-urgency quadrant, what is our clearest defensive priority?
- Which mapped opportunity offers the quickest learning cycle with the lowest implementation cost?
- Where did we find the sharpest disagreement about how AI might shift our competitive standing?

**Finished output:** A completed visual 2x2 matrix of categorized AI opportunities and threats, alongside individual completed action worksheets with named accountability partners and 14-day milestones.

## Remote

Run via video conference using a shared digital whiteboard. Pre-configure dedicated work zones on the canvas for each breakout subgroup with designated sticky note colors, alongside a central 2x2 grid. Subgroups work in breakout rooms for steps 2 through 4, return to plenary for steps 5 and 7, draft independently in step 6, and pair off in 2-person breakout rooms (one 3-person room if odd) for step 8.

## Hybrid

In-person subgroups post physical sticky notes while the hybrid scribe transcribes or photographs them onto the shared digital whiteboard during steps 2 through 4. Remote participants work in a virtual breakout room and post directly to the digital whiteboard. Project the digital canvas in the room during Step 5 and Step 7 so all participants see the unified matrix. For Step 8, pair remote participants together, or pair an in-person person with a remote person via their personal laptop video connection.

## Access and participation choices

- Participants may submit written notes to the board without speaking to the full plenary.
- Pair sharing in Step 8 can occur quietly via shared written documents or chat if verbal exchange in the room is challenging.
- Anyone may choose an internal analysis task rather than an external-facing project for their personal action plan.

## If the session gets stuck

**Subgroup proposals are too generic (for example, 'automate our reporting using AI').**

Ask the table: 'Which exact document or dataset is this applied to, which software will run it, and who receives the output?'

**Discussions stall on speculative long-term risks rather than immediate competitive changes.**

Refocus the room on a 12-month timeline: 'What competitive moves could hurt our revenue or service delivery within the coming year?'


## Terms used here

- Competitive Advantage: An attribute, capability, or asset that allows an organization to outperform competitors or provide distinct value to customers.

## Participant material: AI Advantage Action Worksheet

AI ADVANTAGE ACTION WORKSHEET

Participant Name: __________________________
Accountability Partner: ______________________
Check-in Date (within 14 days): _____________

1. PRIORITY OPPORTUNITY
Selected Opportunity from Map:
Specific test, research task, or proof of concept to run:
Key collaborators needed:
Target milestone date:

2. PRIORITY THREAT
Selected Threat from Map:
Immediate mitigation, analysis, or monitoring step:
Key collaborators needed:
Target milestone date:

3. COMMITMENT
Accountability Partner Signature / Confirmation: ____________________

## Sources and adaptation

Observed in WorkshopBank curriculum library, which attributes the framework to former KPMG and McKinsey consultants.

Retained the 7-stage workshop flow from WorkshopBank (context, advantages, opportunities, threats, visual mapping, action planning, commitment) within the 120-minute allocation and 8-16 participant range. UWT expanded table subgroup sizes to 3 to 5 to handle non-divisible participant counts, added explicit materials for the plenary matrix, separated the source's 'Close and Commit' into an explicit 15-minute debrief step and a separate 15-minute commitment step, provided an explicit trio rule for odd participant counts, detailed the hybrid scribe timeline across steps 2 through 4, and provided step instructions for paired work in step 1.

[WorkshopBank](https://workshopbank.com/workshops/how-might-ai-change-our-competitive-advantage)

Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/how-might-ai-change-our-competitive-advantage-workshop-workshopbank/