A conceptual study published in Long Range Planning examines how AI is reshaping strategy processes and leadership. Traditionally, strategy work has relied on limited data, managerial experience, and separate analysis processes. According to the findings, AI helps organizations better direct their attention, perceive both internal and external signals, interpret them, and respond faster than ever before.
With AI, organizations can continuously and multidimensionally monitor their environment, combining internal data flows with customer behavior, market dynamics, and technological changes in real time. The study highlights three main ways in which AI’s influence becomes visible:
Expanding organizational perception: AI integrates internal data, market signals, and external information, identifying trends and weak signals that may affect strategy before they become obvious. This helps organizations see not only what is happening but also what might happen next.
Democratizing strategic work: The study emphasizes that AI-based tools can turn strategy into a shared topic of discussion across the entire organization. When data, analyses, and forecasts are available to everyone, strategic thinking is no longer limited to top management it becomes a collective capability.
Accelerating response cycles: AI enables organizations to detect the progress of strategy implementation, deviations, and new opportunities almost in real time. This transforms strategy into a process of continuous learning rather than a static, annual cycle.
“AI enhances organizational attentional control by broadening attention, democratizing strategic processes, and accelerating feedback loops.”
– Laamanen et al., 2025
The study discusses the concept of attentional control, or strategic awareness. It refers to an organization’s ability to direct and maintain attention on what is essential and to shift it flexibly as circumstances change. Traditionally, this has been a responsibility confined to executive teams. AI, however, changes this dynamic: it extends awareness across the entire organization, making it a shared resource. When strategic information, data, and interpretations are accessible to everyone, the whole company can see and act in the same direction.
AI can reveal insights that humans alone might not notice but its true value emerges only when people discuss, interpret, and decide together. In this sense, AI does not take leadership away from humans; rather, it makes leadership more impactful. Practically speaking, AI becomes a strategic partner for people. It helps structure thinking, ask the right questions, and keep strategic goals visible in everyday decisions.
Advanced AI solutions, such as Suunta.ai, bring this collaboration tangibly into everyday organizational life. They support both leaders and teams in building, updating, and applying strategy in real time. This partnership changes the nature of strategic work: instead of being a one-time creation that lives in documents, strategy evolves continuously through interaction between humans and AI and manifests in daily operations through the use of AI. Read more about how business leaders can approach the AI revolution here.
According to the research, the future of strategic work will be increasingly dynamic and participatory. Organizations that can leverage AI to expand strategic awareness, foster inclusion, and enable continuous feedback will take a decisive step toward more agile leadership. This is not merely about new technology: it is about a new way of thinking and practicing strategy.
