AI and firms with generic business models
Are you vulnerable to LLMs or being vibe-coded out of existence?
In mid-February 2026, Mony Group, the owner of MoneySuperMarket, the price comparison website, lost £144m in value. The stock price fell by 18% after ChatGPT ate their lunch after launching their own insurance price comparison tool. Naturally, investors took flight when they realised MoneySuperMarket’s business model was easy picking for AI-powered competitors. Christian Dery, of Capital Fund Management, gave this ominous warning: “Firms with generic business models, low barriers to entry and high risk of automation will not survive.” (Source: Telegraph.)
This makes you think that in an age of APIs, your technology platform might be calling out to a number of external APIs in the name of data sharing and easy access, but this example shows how vulnerable a business model these price comparison sites are when a bunch of API calls can be so easily replicated by an AI tool at a fraction of the cost.
I’ve been advising firms recently on AI usage and it is perfectly rational that people in leadership are worried about the operational and security risks of AI agents; yet this example of MoneySuperMarket is in a whole different category. The innovator’s dilemma here is to look at your business model and realise that what was effective just a year ago can be made obsolete in an afternoon.
Take a serious look at your business model if you want to still have a business. This isn’t a technology problem…