Before we explore the integrated strategy machine, let's consider technology's potential to enhance strategy--and its limits. Technology has gotten dramatically better and smarter. In the past decade, cognitively inspired algorithms have enabled machines to learn abstract concepts efficiently and without supervision. The expansion of data, by an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes every day, has fueled more empirical and real-time approaches to business problem solving. And continued advances in hardware (and the surprising longevity of Moore's Law) and scalable computing architecture have reduced computation costs and allowed businesses to take advantage of the explosion of data.

This is an age of techno-utopianism. Topics like big data, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence are at the forefront of the CEO agenda, a sign that companies see technology as a potential answer to many or even most of their challenges. We have good reasons to be excited: an explosion of data and advances in analytics have enabled technology to perform well-defined but complex tasks like recommending movies and diagnosing cancer--not only independently of humans but in many cases better than people can. So it's not implausible to think that technology could also address broad, open-ended, and ambiguous problems like developing and executing a business strategy. In fact, we've spoken to business leaders who believe in such an outcome--and companies such as Amazon and Alibaba are already beginning to make it a reality.