The hardest investment decisions in business are rarely between a good idea and a bad one. More often, they are between many good ideas, all backed by smart people and convincing data. In the era of Artificial Intelligence, where trillions of dollars are being spent globally, this challenge is becoming even more acute.
According to ServiceNow’s President and CFO, capital remains finite. The company’s recent $7.75 billion acquisition of Armis was a deliberate choice to prioritize cybersecurity and asset visibility over several other competing initiatives. To navigate this environment, leaders must answer three fundamental questions.
1. Does it deepen our competitive moat?
In a world where intelligence is becoming cheap and functional code can be produced in minutes, feature advantages can be matched by competitors in weeks. Real differentiation now comes from pairing AI with proprietary data and long-standing expertise. Examples include JPMorgan Chase’s in-house LLM Suite and ServiceNow’s use of data from over 100 billion historical workflows.
2. Are we funding a real customer need?
The customer's voice must drive investment decisions. ServiceNow developed its "AI Control Tower" specifically because enterprise customers reported struggling with fragmented AI efforts. If a major investment cannot be traced directly back to a customer insight, it is a significant red flag.
3. Are customers adopting what we built and getting measurable value?
An investment decision does not end at the sale. According to ServiceNow’s Enterprise AI Maturity Index, 59% of organizations are using agentic AI, but only 9% have made significant progress in creating autonomous, multi-step workflows. When customers fail to see value, the resulting churn can cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue retention.
"Opportunities without prioritization are just noise," the CFO notes, emphasizing the need for discipline and the willingness to cut funding for initiatives that are not working.
