What makes a business defensible in the AI era?

Last weekend, I gave myself a few hours to build something in Replit—one of the popular "AI-powered" development tools.

A few hours later, I had built and deployed a small LinkedIn application—one that allows the user to create custom "newsfeeds".

Several bugs aside, I was impressed by the ease of getting something 0 → 1.

Which led to a deeper question..

If anyone can build a functional application in an afternoon, what are the new competitive moats in the AI era?

Some brief thoughts:

1. Capital

Some markets still require significant investment to enter—whether that's building physical infrastructure, acquiring licenses, or funding deep research. Not everyone can raise the capital to play.

2. Network effects

A product that becomes more valuable as more people use it is harder to replicate. Communities, marketplaces, platforms—they all benefit from this dynamic.

3. Proprietary data

As LLM-powered applications and agents become easier to build, having one's own unique dataset offers an advantage.

4. Distribution

Having efficient mechanisms to distribute products and services to customer segments can offer some moat. This can include having a pre-existing customer base with high switching costs.

5. Brand

A strong brand builds trust, loyalty, and differentiation—especially in commoditised markets where everything looks similar.

6. Regulatory

If operating in an industry where licensing, compliance, or relationships are non-trivial (e.g. fintech, healthcare, defense), that can serve as a durable barrier to entry.

The question of durable competitive advantage is interesting to ask from the different viewpoints of investors, operating executives and entrepreneurs.