The advent of artificial intelligence brought improvements in productivity and efficiency.
But as AI becomes more integrated into our everyday lives and economic systems, it is increasingly solving complex problems in fields like data security and national defense. There is no room for error in these high-stakes environments. Breaches of sensitive data, whether personal health information or military intelligence, can wreak havoc on individuals and countries.
Competitive advantage will belong to those nations and industries who drive change by balancing consideration with bold, swift action. Not only will they solve problems, they will take the lead in this next phase of the global AI race.
Risk Versus Reward
Global marketing thought leader and futurist Vladimer Botsvadze, who is based in Tbilisi, Georgia, says approach and mentality differ between the United States and its competitors.
“The United States has a strong culture of risk-taking and innovation,” Botsvadze says. “In other countries, investment in AI is often approached more cautiously, and some leading European countries prioritize regulation, which can slow the pace of adoption.”
He says the United States maintains minimal AI regulation, giving companies greater freedom to innovate without major barriers.
“Many European investors and founders are risk-averse, focusing on short- to medium-term outcomes rather than long-term success,” Botsvadze says. “In contrast, investors in the United States often take a long-term perspective and are willing to invest heavily in AI and other innovative startups.”
That risk aversion harms the strong pipeline of European early-stage startups, he adds, which then struggle at the scale-up stage due to limited access to additional capital.
Botsvadze also notes how speed is a driving force of business, highlighting the difference in financial investments made between the United States and China. Between 2013 and 2024, the U.S. invested $471 billion in AI, according to Visual Capitalist.
“In 2024 alone, U.S. AI investment reached $109 billion. By comparison, China invested a total of $119 billion in AI over the entire 2013-2024 period,” Botsvadze says. “In other words, the United States invested nearly as much in a single year as China did over 11 years.”
Some companies hesitate to move forward, questioning the ROI of AI, which is predicted to contribute nearly $20 trillion to the global gross domestic product by 2030, according to the International Data Corporation.
“Either you adopt the reality of the marketplace,” he says, “or you question the ROI and you are left behind.”
Staying Ahead of the Curve
While this global AI race often plays out at a macro level, who pulls ahead is determined by individual companies and their leadership teams—and how they choose to apply AI.
“Nowadays, they say you will not be replaced by AI,” Botsvadze says. “But if someone uses AI, you will be replaced by them.”
He believes a beginner’s mindset can unlock success.
“People who approach situations with curiosity and openness discover many opportunities, whereas those who assume they’re the smartest in the room end up with far fewer options,” Botsvadze says.
Ultimately, he says, work is the main differentiator on the global stage.
“The only thing that can allow you to achieve such success is to just sit down, put your head down and work,” he says.
Developing a Better Way Forward
Redactable founder and CEO Amanda Levay was working on the lending side of finance, redacting credit packages, when she had an epiphany that drawing boxes over sensitive data—a routine, common practice—didn’t actually remove the information. “The biggest issue is that [people] will think that it’s redacted and then you can just see what’s behind the black boxes,” she says.
This curiosity sparked Levay to launch Redactable, an AI-based platform that helps companies permanently redact their sensitive documents. It serves a variety of industries, including health care, legal, government and human resources. The U.S. Air Force is also a customer.
She didn’t understand why there wasn’t a B2B SaaS platform where you could upload documents, redact them and get them back.
“We saw B2B SaaS for everything else, like e-signature and document management, but nothing for redaction specifically,” Levay says. “So I set out to self-fund the company and build it myself.”
Redactable has raised around $7 million in venture capital and is backed by Google’s AI fund. The company uses AI to identify sensitive information within the document, making the process 98% faster than manual review methods.
Redactable also has a variety of machine learning and AI-based algorithms that validate the redactions against the information it’s trying to remove.
“Security is a big deal, especially when you are redacting sensitive information,” Levay says, citing high-stakes frameworks such as HIPAA regulations, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws and national security interests. “[These are] highly regulated environments that actually can’t afford to make these [kinds] of mistakes.”
Levay says organizations typically rely on legacy PDF editing tools to try to redact documents. But since these tools aren’t built natively for redaction, data could be leaked.
Redactable has developed a way to hack the PDF’s structure internally to remove data accurately, which is what helps give customers a permanent redaction, she says.
“Many companies are already reluctant to use OpenAI models,” Levay says. “So, since Redactable is proprietary, our tech is proprietary to us. That also helps build that trust layer because they vet whether you are sending data to a third party.”
Customers turn to Redactable to strip out personally identifiable information and protected health information before they put their data into an AI model for training.
Redactable looks at redaction as an “infrastructure layer,” helping their customers efficiently protect tens of millions of pages at scale.
The Human Touch
Botsvadze believes that ignoring customer needs is the fastest way to obsolescence for any company.
“Building relationships is what drives ROI. Interaction has become the linchpin of growth today,” he says. “We need to engage with consumers and foster emotional connections—because while AI struggles to create genuine emotion, it is precisely this human connection that gives us a competitive advantage.”
He also argues that human skills like analytical thinking, resilience, agility and self-awareness remain essential.
“Self-awareness reflects a founder’s high emotional intelligence, which is becoming more valuable as technology diminishes the relative importance of IQ,” Botsvadze says.
Both Levay and Botsvadze are focused on what’s ahead. Levay believes the future of AI is going to be more regulated.
“...The release of AI has brought back these topics of data privacy and how... we handle sensitive information. And I think the companies that are really looking forward and trying to solve for that now are going to be the most successful in this,” Levay says.
Botsvadze says many AI researchers and pioneers are moving to the United States—particularly to Silicon Valley—where they can attract investment and raise funding at scale. Which means competition will be even fiercer, and the winners will be those who act decisively, not tentatively.
“AI is the electricity of the 21st century,” Botsvadze says. “Anyone who ignores it won’t be able to compete at the top.”
Featured image by CineVI/Shutterstock
This article was first published in the July/August 2026 issue of SUCCESS Magazine. Get your copy here.
