A recent survey by the Central do Varejo portal brought a number worth pausing on: 67% of Brazilian companies already treat AI as a strategic priority. Not as a pilot project, not as an IT test. As a board-level priority, with a dedicated budget and a target that is tracked. Their focus, according to the same survey, is on three fronts: optimizing operations, cutting costs, and generating a new source of revenue.
This post is not to congratulate those in the 67%. It is for the owner and manager who is still in the 33%. The message is not alarmist, it is mathematical: if two out of every three of your competitors are already in the race, the ground for whoever stood still shrinks fast.
1. The data behind the data: what "strategic priority" means
"Company says AI is a priority" is easy. It is already a mandatory line in the annual report. But the Central do Varejo survey raises the bar: priority here is the kind that involves money set aside in the budget, a team assigned to handle the topic, and a target that is tracked over the next twelve months.
When the number reaches 67%, it means that most of the market has stopped debating "whether" and started debating "how". The bar conversation among experienced business owners has changed. It used to be "AI is not for my sector", today it is "I have already tried this and that, which tool are you using?". A company still stuck on "AI is not for my sector" sounds, today, like a company that in 2015 said it did not need a website.
2. Why operations, cost, and revenue in particular?
The three fronts cited by the survey are no accident. They are the only three fronts where AI pays the bill in the short term. Applied to other things, AI becomes an expense with no clear return.
Optimizing operations means doing what you already do with less friction. Less rework, less waiting between steps, fewer important tasks forgotten. It is the fastest gain to show.
Cutting costs is what a CFO understands without needing an explanation. If AI eliminates repetitive hours of expensive people, the math adds up on its own. You do not need to convince anyone with a promise, you just present the difference month over month.
Generating new revenue is the most ambitious frontier: a new product, a service that did not exist, serving customers you could not serve before. Here the return takes longer, but it is bigger. A company that stays only on the first two fronts gets leaner. A company that goes for all three gets leaner and grows.
3. What is inside the remaining 33%
Those who still do not treat AI as a priority are usually in one of four situations.
Situation 1, the honest skeptic: "I have seen too many fads, I will wait for proof that it delivers something". Reasonable ten years ago, dangerous today. The "something" has already appeared, and it goes by the name of a competitor.
Situation 2, the busy one: "I know it matters, but I am putting out operational fires, I do not have the bandwidth". This is exactly where AI helps the most. The operational fire grows because the company's processes cannot keep up, and AI is precisely what speeds up processes. Waiting for the fire to pass is making the fire last longer.
Situation 3, the uninformed one: "you cannot put AI in my sector, it is too specific". Almost never true. Today there are documented cases of AI applied in notary offices, auto repair shops, private schools, beverage distributors, traditional accounting firms. No sector is immune.
Situation 4, the disorganized one: "my company is not ready, first I need to get my house in order". This is the hardest situation. A very messy company really does have a serious problem adopting AI. But the "tidying up" never ends, so making AI conditional on fixing everything first is a synonym for never starting. The honest path: fix one small piece, put AI in it, show the result, and use the result to justify fixing the next piece.
4. The hidden cost of standing still
A company outside the AI wave today does not "spend more". It spends the same as it always spent. The problem is that the competitor who adopted is spending 20%, 30%, 40% less to deliver the same thing. That gap becomes room for them to lower prices, hire good people, or invest in marketing. At some point, that gap meets your margin.
This is not dramatization. It is as if you had a neighborhood store selling well in 1995, and the competitor on the corner opened an e-commerce operation in 2010. For a few years you do not feel it. Then the customer starts testing it, sees that it is more convenient, and your traffic starts to evaporate. By the time you decide to react, it is too late.
5. The first concrete move for those in the 33%
Before hiring a tool, hire a serious conversation with someone who has already walked the path. It could be consulting, it could be an informal exchange with a business owner in your sector who has already adopted it, it could be a visit to an operation similar to yours. You need to see AI working on the ground, not in a YouTube video.
After that conversation, choose a specific, measurable process that hurts. It could be the support queue, it could be the accounting close, it could be generating commercial proposals. Run a 30 to 60 day pilot. Do not involve the whole board, involve one or two trusted operators. Measure before and after, in hours or in deliverables. A good result in the pilot unlocks a bigger budget. A bad result teaches you what to avoid.
6. The direct message
The 67% figure is a snapshot of now. Twelve months from now, it is likely to be 80%, 85%. The remaining 33% will become a minority, and a minority with no method becomes a disposable supplier. Whoever decides now can enter the game at the right time, with a cheap pilot and fast learning. Whoever decides eighteen months from now will hire expensive consulting, on a tight deadline, in an already crowded environment.
The right question for this week is not "is AI useful for my company?". It is, that is already proven. The question is: what is the first problem in my company where AI will show results within three months? Whoever can answer that by Friday has the clarity to start. Whoever cannot keeps piling up hidden cost.