The cross-off test
The Moat You Cannot Demo
Brian T. O'Neill surveyed roughly 13 analytics platforms and found the same demo everywhere. His test for what remains is simple. Cross off every moat a competitor could demo next week, then look at what is left.
From Experiencing Data episode 197, "Agentic AI Isn't a Moat for Analytics Products. This is."
Ten claimed moats · answer each one
Moats remaining: 10 of 10
Better agentic AI
Our copilot answers questions in plain English.
Proprietary data
History a competitor cannot gather retroactively.
Semantic layer
Shared definitions across every tool.
Community trust
Relationships do not ship in a release.
Governed data
Certified, validated, lineage-tracked.
Compounding institutional knowledge
Grades joined to outcomes, accruing on a rated entity. Week 40 does not demo.
Talk-to-your-data
Chat interface over the warehouse.
Experience of the intelligence
When everyone has the same AI, the moat isn't the product's intelligence, it's the experience of the intelligence.
Brian T. O'Neill, episode 197
Model sophistication
Latest foundation models under the hood.
Integrations with everything
Connects to your whole stack.
Cross off every moat a competitor could stand up next week.
Why history survives
One card resisted because it does not exist yet for anyone who starts today.
- The rated entity
- A track record only accrues at one speed.
- The copied schema
- A schema copies in a sprint.
Week 6. A competitor could copy the schema this sprint. The record is a handful of graded calls so far, and it is the only thing they cannot copy.
What is left
Cross off everything a competitor could stand up next week and the board thins to almost nothing. What survives all points one way.
The metric is not a number that flashes on a dashboard and disappears. It is a first-class rated entity, with an identity that persists, a version history that records every change, and a track record of graded calls joined to what actually happened. A schema copies in a sprint. That record only accrues at one speed, and a competitor cannot start it retroactively.
This page is an interactive version of Brian T. O'Neill's cross-off test, from Experiencing Data episode 197. The framing and the quoted lines are his.
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The Moat You Cannot Demo