Michael joined a corporate strategy team after his company was acquired, and watched brilliant people spend their planning time formatting slides instead of thinking. The tools were the problem. So he built interactive ones, years before anyone said "AI strategy."
When the creators of Blue Ocean Strategy discovered the approach, they invited the team to INSEAD. A far cruder version of VSTRAT is what went in. We spent over a decade there refining it in MBA and executive education classrooms, against real executives with real decisions on the line. Today's VSTRAT is what came out.
Most generative AI tools came out of computer science labs looking for a use. Ours came out of a business school that already had the method and needed the muscle. We added it where it removed busywork, and nowhere it replaced judgment.
Anyone can wrap a language model and call it strategy. What they can't hand you is two decades of methodology that executives and professors have already stress-tested.
"We don't replace strategic thinking.
We clear everything out of its way."