AI, Human Skills, and Competitive Advantage in Chess

We investigate how artificial intelligence (AI) impacts competitive advantage, employing a resource-based view. Through a study of chess tournaments with human, AI, and hybrid players, the authors find that AI adoption leads to both the obsolescence of traditional human skills and the emergence of new advantages stemming from human-machine collaboration. This substitution and complementation dynamic redefines competitive landscapes, requiring managers to cultivate new capabilities in an AI-driven world. The Journal of Management excerpt introduces the resource-based view of the firm, positing that firm resources, if valuable, rare, inimitable, and organized (VRIO), can create sustained competitive advantage. It argues that internal resources, rather than external market conditions alone, are key to understanding firm performance and heterogeneity.