The Signal Layer: What to Build When Anything Can Be Built — Lena Hall, Akamai

Lena Hall argues that when competitors can use similar AI tools, choosing a worthwhile customer problem becomes a source of differentiation. In the publisher's account of her talk, she says that asking a model what to build tends to produce answers drawn from knowledge available to everyone.

Hall locates the remaining advantage in judgment informed by customer relationships and situations for which little evidence yet exists. Her argument gives teams a reason to preserve direct customer understanding as they automate implementation: a capable builder still needs someone to identify which problem deserves the effort.