9Q / Strategic Shapes
Strategic Shapes is an AI strategy framework created by Suhit Anantula. It reads an organisation's AI strategy from the pattern its initiatives make on the 9Q Grid. Three failure shapes (Anchor, Shotgun, Drift) show an organisation that has not chosen. Four strategic shapes (Spear, Shield, Spiral, Star) are deliberate choices, each trading a strength for a vulnerability leaders must govern.
Strategic Shapes is read on the 9Q Grid — Suhit Anantula's map of AI agency and type of work. Read the 9Q Grid.
Assist / Augment / Adapt × structured / dynamic / complex
Before a deliberate shape, most portfolios sit in a failure shape. The usual path is Anchor → Shotgun → choice point → strategic shape, with Drift as a dangerous side-route. Shapes are concentrations, not identities; hybrids are normal.
Pattern: Mostly Q1–Q2 and a little Q3. The Adapt row is nearly empty. AI is used as faster typing.
The tell: Ask for the AI strategy and you get a list of tools.
What it needs next: An Anchor needs the Licence — earn the trust to move up (see the AAA Licence chapter).
Pattern: Pilots scattered across many cells. A centre of excellence, many pilots, several vendors.
The tell: Three leaders give three incompatible answers.
What it needs next: A Shotgun needs the Machine: consolidate, prune, design for flow.
Pattern: Looks like upward movement into high-agency cells, but the move is in the story, not the capability (Q3 called Q9).
The tell: Governance documents sound more advanced than the deployments.
What it needs next: Drift needs honesty before anything else.
At the choice point, ask: which shape are we willing to earn? Choose by the vulnerability you are willing to govern. There is no perfect shape.
Pattern: Depth in one chosen region, often toward the complex side of the grid.
Strength: Depth competitors cannot match.
Vulnerability to govern: Brittleness.
Pattern: Strength through the middle; governed, repeatable capability.
Strength: Endurance.
Vulnerability to govern: Inertia (slowness).
Pattern: Activity in the dynamic and exploratory cells; constant iteration.
Strength: Adaptability.
Vulnerability to govern: Instability.
Pattern: Internal cells look sparse; capability comes through partners, platforms and ecosystems.
Strength: Leverage.
Vulnerability to govern: Dependency.
We choose your shape by layering four things: your 9Q target, what AI has earned permission to do (trust, readiness gates, human override), your business model, and the competitor shape that would beat you, all tied to the weakness you are willing to govern.
Our strategy work gives you a shape map: your current shape, your target shape, and the shape that would beat you.
Use the 9Q diagnostic and how to prioritise AI use cases.
For the process of building a strategy on the map, see an AI strategy framework that starts with a map.
Order of work: map each initiative on the 9Q Grid, read the portfolio as a shape on this page, then check permission with the AAA Licence. Moving up the grid is a trust and investment decision. Public case readings live in the 9Q case library (public evidence, not clients). The book chapter is Chapter 4: Strategic Shapes.
Strategic Shapes names three traps (Anchor, Shotgun, Drift) and four deliberate postures (Spear, Shield, Spiral, Star), read from the pattern of AI initiatives on the 9Q Grid.
A failure shape: mostly Assist on structured work, Adapt nearly empty. Low risk, quick gains, then a capability plateau that looks like success.
A failure shape: pilots scattered across many quadrants. Lots of learning surface, but learning does not compound.
A failure shape where the story of high-agency AI runs ahead of the deployments and governance.
There is no perfect shape, only the one whose vulnerability you are willing to govern.
The Spear builds depth in its chosen domain; the Star extends through partners. The choice follows the shape.
Concentration — Spear or Shield — over scattered pilots.
No. Shapes are choices, not levels. 9Q and Strategic Shapes show position and posture, not a ladder of progress.