Why the Mittelstand Overpays for AI

Go look at the job postings the next time a German Mittelstand company announces it's "investing in AI." The roles filling fastest aren't implementation or compliance. They're sales — people who can produce the moment where a room goes quiet and someone says "wow." That's the honest shape of how most Mittelstand companies are buying AI right now, and it's the real reason they're overpaying for it — not because the technology is expensive, but because they're paying full price for confidence instead of fit. This episode walks through the EU AI Act deadline that just moved (and the risk that didn't), two real vendor answers that gave more away than the vendor intended, and the unglamorous fix: ask the questions before the pen touches paper, not after. Iconoclast Insights is André Daus — strategic opposition, uncomfortable questions, no comfortable answers.