The era of the knowledge-hoarder has ended. In its place, the 'builder'—a professional who uses artificial intelligence to create applications, automate tasks, and design systems—has become the new driver of competitive advantage.
Ilan Oliel Márquez, Head of Product & Tech at Energía Real, argues that the democratization of generative AI has rendered traditional knowledge a commodity. Access to market data, business strategies, and executive summaries is now instantaneous for anyone with an LLM, rendering the question of 'what you know' obsolete.
'The knowledge was commoditized,' Márquez writes. 'When everyone has access to the same information, the question becomes: what do you build with what you know?'
Moving from pilots to production
The transition requires a shift in organizational maturity. Many companies remain stuck in 'pilot purgatory,' where experimental AI projects fail to scale. Márquez identifies three core pillars for companies looking to move beyond basic chatbot usage: evolving human roles from AI literacy to AI architecture, moving from ad-hoc experiments to autonomous processes, and upgrading infrastructure from simple API consumption to proprietary enterprise platforms.
This shift is not limited to software developers. According to Márquez, the new wave of builders includes salespeople designing their own prospecting agents, legal teams automating contract reviews, and financial analysts building predictive models without writing code. The primary requirement is not programming expertise, but the ability to think in systems and a willingness to experiment.
However, the rapid adoption of these tools brings significant risks. As autonomous agents take on commercial decision-making and data analysis, organizations must ensure their systems remain transparent and free of discriminatory bias. Márquez warns that speed must not outpace responsibility, particularly regarding data privacy and the impact of automation on the workforce.
The energy sector, specifically business-to-business operations, stands to gain the most from this shift. Because energy investment decisions involve complex, long-term sales cycles built on technical trust, companies that design proprietary smart tools rather than purchasing 'off-the-shelf' software will find themselves with a distinct advantage.
'Knowledge without action is just content,' Márquez notes. 'And the world already has enough of that.'
