While Artificial intelligence is considered to be the engine of innovation and growth for years to come, little is known about the factors that secure a competitive advantage for companies using it. This thesis addresses this gap. Combining case study research and survey research, this study provides empirical evidence for the resource data as a potential source of competitive advantage but contingent to the type of offering. The study further propose data as a complementary asset that partially explains a strong increase of corporate research in the field of artificial intelligence contradictory to an overall decline of corporate science activities.

Philipp Hartmann advises companies on how to stay competitive in the age of AI. Currently he is Director of AI Strategy at appliedAI, before that he spent four years at McKinsey & Company as a strategy consultant. Philipp holds a PhD from Technical University of Munich where he investigated factors of competitive advantage in Artificial Intelligence. He studied Industrial Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge.