Defensibility Is No Longer Built. It Is Cultivated

Greg Twemlow's article posits that traditional competitive advantages are easily replicated in the age of artificial intelligence. He argues that true defensibility now stems from actively involving users in a product's ongoing development, moving from a build-it-and-they-will-come approach to a collaborative "co-design" model. This cultivates deep user loyalty, which Twemlow suggests is the ultimate and most resilient competitive "moat". Furthermore, the author proposes formalising this collaboration through "Co-Design DAOs" that reward user contributions with tokens, potentially sharing in the product's financial success and creating a powerful co-creation ecosystem. Twemlow contends that this shift recognises user loyalty as a byproduct and a crucial asset that drives growth and resists competition, ultimately advocating for a return to trust through shared creation. Read the Article on Medium.About the Author - Greg Twemlow writes and teaches at the intersection of technology, education, and human judgment. He works with educators and businesses to make AI explainable and assessable in classrooms and boardrooms — to ensure AI users show their process and own their decisions. His cognition protocol, the Context & Critique Rule™, is built on a three-step process: Evidence → Cognition → Discernment — a bridge from what’s scattered to what’s chosen. Context & Critique → Accountable AI™. © 2025 Greg Twemlow. “Context & Critique → Accountable AI” and “Context & Critique Rule” are unregistered trademarks (™).