**The AI founding boom** – in the first half of 2026, 3,053 startups were founded in Germany, a record. In 1,038 of them, artificial intelligence sits at the core of the business model.1 What is truly remarkable is not the number, but what lies behind it: many of these startups are not faster versions of old businesses. They are new business fields that could only emerge because AI lowered the barriers. "The availability of AI tools has noticeably lowered the barriers to founding a company," says Verena Pausder of the German Startup Association.1
That is precisely the message for established companies. The experimentation phase is over: 40 percent of the German economy is already actively using AI – AI is no longer a question of company size.2 This raises two questions. The first – how to use AI in an orderly, secure, and traceable way – is covered in our article AI in regulated industries. This article addresses the second: AI is usually understood as an efficiency tool that speeds up existing processes. That is correct, but it is the smaller half. The larger half: AI can fundamentally change things and make offerings possible that did not exist before. This article shows how to tap into that second half – with a strategy for uncovering new business fields through AI.
Two Ways to Use AI – and Why Most Companies Stop at the First
AI can be used in two fundamentally different ways.
The first is acceleration: you do what you already do, but faster and cheaper – copy, analyses, routine processes. The benefit is real and quickly visible, but limited. You are optimizing the existing.
The second is transformation: you use AI to create an offering that did not exist before – or to change an existing one so profoundly that a new business field emerges. This is where the real leverage lies, and it shows in the numbers: according to the IW Consult/eco study, more than 120 billion euros in revenue is already being generated through AI-supported product innovations and new services; by 2034, AI could contribute an additional 330 billion euros or so to German gross value added.2
Most companies stop at the first way. They roll out AI tools, save some time – and overlook that the same technology could be the foundation of a new business. The founding boom demonstrates exactly this: what established players see as "just an efficiency tool" is, for a founder, the foundation of an entire company.
What the Founding Boom Shows Established Companies
For established companies, the new AI startups are less a threat than a map. Every startup founded in or adjacent to your industry marks a spot where AI suddenly makes a problem solvable that was previously too expensive or too complex. Those who read these movements see early on where new fields are emerging in their own market.
And established companies have an advantage no startup has: customer access, data, industry knowledge, and trust. A founder has to earn all of that first. You already own it. The decisive question is therefore not "How do I fend off the newcomers?" but "Which new field could I claim with my assets and AI faster than any outsider?"
A Strategy for Uncovering New Business Fields
New business fields rarely emerge by chance. They can be searched for systematically – through four perspectives applied to your own company, one after the other.
- Think from your own assets. What do you own that is valuable to others? Data only you have; expertise sitting in people's heads and documents; a customer base with a recurring need. For each of these assets, ask: what could AI make of it that goes beyond your current offering? Industry data becomes a benchmarking service; expert knowledge becomes an AI-powered assistant for customers.
- Think from the problems that used to be too expensive. Every industry knows services it would like to offer but that never paid off – too labor-intensive, too slow, too expensive to scale. This is exactly where AI shifts the boundary. Check: which of these services suddenly becomes economical with AI? That is often the most direct path to a new offering.
- Think from product to outcome. AI makes it possible to sell a finished outcome instead of a product or billable hours. Instead of software, a completed task; instead of consulting hours, a guaranteed result. Ask: where could you take the outcome off your customers' hands instead of just handing them the tool? Such model shifts often open up an entirely new field – and bind customers more closely.
- Learn from the newcomers. Deliberately watch which AI startups are emerging in your niche and in adjacent areas. Not to copy them, but to recognize the field they are pointing to. What these teams are painstakingly building from scratch, you could claim faster and more credibly with your assets.
From Field to Execution – Without Spreading Yourself Thin
Ideas for new fields are quickly found; the mistake usually lies in execution. Two things keep the search productive.
First: focus. The four perspectives will generate many approaches – choose one or two with the clearest value proposition and the strongest connection to your assets. One field pursued beats ten fields discussed.
Second: test small and fast. A new business field proves itself not in a presentation but with a real customer. Formulate a clear hypothesis, build a lean prototype, and test on a real case whether the value materializes. Only then scale.
This search is the first of our six Rocks: strategy. It clarifies what AI is used for before anyone talks about tools. Without that clarification, AI only misses the target more efficiently; with it, AI becomes an engine for new value creation.
What You Should Do Now
- Asset inventory: List which data, which knowledge, and which customer access only you have.
- Apply the four perspectives: Work through assets, problems that were too expensive, product-to-outcome, and newcomers one by one, and collect ideas for new fields.
- Focus: Choose one or two fields with the clearest value proposition.
- Test: Hypothesis, lean prototype, one real customer case – before any scaling.
Guiding questions: Are we using AI only to get faster – or also to offer something new? Which of our assets would be the foundation of a business a startup would love to have? And which field could we claim before someone else does?
Conclusion
The AI founding boom is more than a statistic about startups. It is proof that AI does not just accelerate – it creates entirely new business fields. For established companies, that is an invitation: use AI not only to optimize the existing, but to open up new fields with your assets – before someone else does. The new pace belongs to those who use it strategically.
If you want to find out which new business fields AI opens up for your company, talk to us – in a 30-minute conversation, we will sort through your assets and opportunities together. Free of charge, no sales pitch, no slides.
6Rocks – Your Path to AI Sovereignty.
Sources & References
- Startup-Verband (German Startup Association) / Startupdetector: startup report for the first half of 2026 (3,053 startups founded, 1,038 with an AI focus; quote from Verena Pausder), reported by Handelsblatt, 2026: handelsblatt.com
- eco – Verband der Internetwirtschaft (Germany's internet industry association) / IW Consult: „120 Milliarden Euro Umsatz durch KI-gestützte Innovationen" (40% AI adoption; +€330 billion in gross value added by 2034), 2026: eco.de