How to Plan Five Years Out When AI Changes Everything in Six Months

If you're a leader beating yourself up for not seeing something coming, be easy on yourself. Business is about predicting the future, and AI is making the future harder to predict every month.

This week, the three biggest U.S. phone companies had some of their worst days in decades. SpaceX said it will become a mobile carrier, and Verizon had its worst day since 2002. If you can't count on AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile, what can you count on?

I wrote about what this means for investors in why even dividend stocks aren't safe. This article is for the people running companies.

Business is predicting the future

The value of a business is its future cash flow and future growth. That's why you hire. It's why you add to a team and why you promote people.

Once a business grows from a hobby into a multi-million or multi-billion dollar company, the most important thing a leader can do is set the vision. Then you set goals, KPIs and initiatives, and manage the team's daily work against them over three, five and 10 years.

That system assumes the future is somewhat knowable. If everything changes in a week, how are you supposed to forecast anything? How are you supposed to hire?

Why forecasting is harder in an AI world

AI could find a much better way to do something in six months. Two years after that, the business model you thought was essential may not be.

Claude may be a bubble. Anthropic might be a bubble. That could be true, and I've written about why I'd put money elsewhere. What isn't a bubble is the pace of innovation. It's moving faster than any of us can keep up with, and it's affecting every area of our lives.

I see it in software, where partners are becoming competitors, and now in telecom, which most people thought was untouchable.

Be easy on yourself

I know a lot of founders and leaders who are very hard on themselves right now. They feel they should have seen things coming. But the people running the biggest phone companies in the country didn't see Friday coming either.

Missing a change isn't a failure of leadership. Refusing to adjust once you see it would be. Give yourself the same grace you'd give a good employee who was handed a moving target.

How to plan when the ground keeps shifting

1. Keep the vision long and the plan short. Hold a five- or 10-year direction. Commit to detailed plans for one or two quarters at a time.
2. Review more often. Look at goals and KPIs monthly instead of once a year. Ask what changed, not just what you hit.
3. Build around what won't change. Customers will still want speed, trust and value. Plan around those, and treat the tools as replaceable.
4. Hire for range. Look for people who learn quickly and can move between problems, not only people who fit one role on today's org chart.
5. Name your biggest outside risk. Ask who could enter your market with new technology. Write it down and revisit it every quarter.
6. Own something physical or relational. Relationships, distribution and real-world assets are harder to copy than software.

Eisenhower's point still holds. The plan you write today will be wrong. The habit of planning, reviewing and adjusting is what keeps a team steady.

What to tell your team

Your team feels this too. Tell them plainly that the plan will change, and that change is expected, not a sign something went wrong.

Then show them what stays the same: the mission, how you treat customers and how you treat each other. If you want a quick read on where your company is most exposed, try the AI-proof test or the growth diagnostic.