Velocity over speed: why the AI race has already failed

"Here's a truth from physics that should concern every executive racing toward AI dominance: speed tells you how fast you're moving. Velocity tells you how fast you're moving - and in which direction. A car travelling at 100 mph in circles has tremendous speed but zero velocity. It goes nowhere. It only burns fuel, overheats the engine, and eventually becomes a hazard to everything nearby. As Stephen Covey put it more bluntly: "Speed is irrelevant if you are going in the wrong direction.""

"Sam Altman reportedly issued an internal "code red" at OpenAI in December 2025 - an emergency directive to focus resources on improving ChatGPT whilst delaying initiatives like advertising or Pulse triggered by Google's launch of Gemini 3. The flagship product that triggered the current AI frenzy, deployed to hundreds of millions of users, needed an internal alarm bell."

"This isn't an isolated corporate moment. It's the logical endpoint of what researchers Houser and Raymond identified in their 2021 analysis: an AI race that "lacks definition, a goal, or even an aspirational dream" - yet we keep selling the emotional story of "winning" without ever crossing a finish line. Motion is not progress We measure "leadership" in the AI race through release dates, funding rounds, model sizes, benchmark wins. These are metrics of , not . They tell us who is accelerating - not who is steering."

Speed indicates how fast something moves; velocity indicates both speed and direction. Rapid technological activity without a defined goal can produce motion without progress, burning resources without steering toward a purpose. Companies have issued emergency directives to consolidate flagship AI products and delay new initiatives when competition accelerates. Leadership measured by release schedules, funding rounds, model sizes and benchmark wins rewards acceleration, not strategic direction. Emotional narratives of "winning" encourage perpetual competition without an endpoint. Prioritizing consolidation, clear goals and direction prevents wasted effort and reduces risk from speed without purpose.

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