AI, Chess, and Competitive Advantage: Substitution and Complementation

This academic article from the Strategic Management Journal investigates how artificial intelligence (AI) alters the foundations of competitive advantage by examining chess tournaments involving human players, AI engines, and human-AI teams. The authors apply a resource-based view to analyze how AI adoption leads to both the substitution of traditional human cognitive skills and the emergence of new advantages through human-AI complementarity. Their findings suggest that while AI diminishes the importance of conventional expertise, it simultaneously creates opportunities for individuals with skills in managing and augmenting AI systems to gain a competitive edge. This study contributes to strategy literature by providing an integrated perspective on how AI-driven substitution and complementation jointly reshape the sources of competitive advantage.