What Happens When Mature Categories Get Rewritten Around AI

By Peggy Tierney Galvin 

AI is changing the way existing categories are framed, compared and valued. That creates a strategic challenge for established companies: when the market starts rewriting a space around AI, the old story may no longer hold. 

It’s important for organizations to understand how mature categories get reframed, what signals indicate that a category shift is underway, and why companies that do not actively shape the new narrative risk being repositioned by competitors, analysts and AI systems instead. 

The need for AI solutions and services 

AI security is a great example. With the advent of generative AI, large language models (LLMs) and agents comes the need to protect against these tools, in different environments, against the new scale and capacities they represent.  

On the flipside, traditional cybersecurity tools that were already using automation to filter alerts, for example, are now using AI under the hood in legacy offerings or rolling out completely new solutions that are essentially three frontier models in a trench coat.  

Any software company is open to disruption by AI; it’s just a matter of at what scale and to what extent. For instance, vendors that sell low-code/no-code solutions are rapidly rebranding, repackaging and redesigning their offerings as vibe coding solutions. Coding isn’t necessary any longer except for the most technical users, and this opens up new category possibilities for understanding how these solutions compare to one another, who uses them and how to extract value from these new solutions. 

IT buyer personas across the economy are under extreme pressure to deploy their IT budgets on AI offerings with their white-hot hype and irresistible promises to deliver incredible efficiency. This massive shift in spend towards IT tools means that legacy software tools and SaaS services are being choked off and their own revenue streams threatened.  

Therefore, it behooves everyone to do everything possible on the product side – and the marketing side – to reposition your offering as an AI-native, -enabled or -(fill in the blank) so you remain on the right side of the budget equation. If you’re not making the case for why and how your solution leverages new AI technology, you’re actively risking your revenue streams and long-term health.

Should you reposition? If so, how? 

How can leaders evaluate whether they need to reposition their framing in light of AI? What should you look for? What are those signals that indicate a shift is underway? 

• Look at the market – specifically, at the tech spend over the past few years. What is it overwhelmingly being spent on? What are investors overwhelmingly investing in?  

• On the flipside, if you’re a hardware company, it’s time to start positioning your company as an integral component in high-performance data center infrastructure that is experiencing a parallel explosion in investment.  

• This also calls for new categories or recategorization: if your legacy as a machining manufacturer, cabling designer or robotics vendor was selling into, say, healthcare or automotive before, it’s time to overhaul your brand and product to make sure the world knows they’re AI-ready as well. 

There are key components that a vendor’s narrative should include for the AI landscape. For a tech vendor looking to reposition itself in a new category, or create a completely new one, the “so what” at the end of all the AI repositioning will still come down to the essentials: how you are better than the alternatives, what problems you solve that the competition does not, how you make your partners and customers save more time, save more money and open up new lines of revenue. Because at the end of the day, that’s all that still matters: making that case clearly and consistently. 

Companies that don’t actively shape the new narrative risk being repositioned by competitors, analysts and AI systems instead. Follow the money if you want proof of this. An analysis of venture capital data found that AI firms accounted for 61% of global VC spending last year. And during Q1 of this year, AI-based companies took 80% of all global startup investment in the quarter. That’s $242 billion – more AI funding happened in Q1 than all of 2025 combined. It’s sobering. 

Frame your own future 

The advent of AI has shaken up all existing technology categories and customer expectations. This shift isn’t temporary, and it will require your company to reposition itself accordingly to stay competitive. We’re not talking about “AI washing” where you claim to have AI capabilities but don’t. This is about positioning your legitimate AI solutions and services in a way that’s credible and that stands out. 

Using the same old positioning won’t work when the market and investors are expecting AI framing. Now is not the time to be shy about your product’s AI (or AI-enabling) capabilities. Don’t allow competitors and analysts to define you; that’s how you lose narrative control and get left behind. Instead, use strong positioning to control your messaging. Consistency, clarity and a focus on solving your customers’ or partners’ pain points won’t change, regardless of category. That’s how you stay relevant and avoid ending up in the dustbin of business history.