The ‘AI-Scare’ And Why The ICRG ‘Moat’ Is So Deep?

PRS’ risk governance board met this morning, as we have client meetings set for today given the mounting tensions between the US and Iran, as well as price trends in parts of Europe (France) and some new hiring data out of the US.

One topic we also discussed was the recent ‘AI scare’ that have sent equities lower, particularly as they affect disruptions to select software industries. More than $300 billion in market value from software and data stocks was erased.

The primary catalyst was the launch of new AI ‘agent’ tools by Anthropic (specifically its “Claude Cowork” product), which demonstrated the ability to automate complex professional workflows. This sparked fears that traditional software firms once seen as ‘AI winners’ may have their business models cannibalized by more advanced AI agents.

One of the key drivers of the sell-off was the notion of ‘moat erosion,’ as investors fear that ‘traditional’ software companies have shallower moats because AI agents can replace their specific functionalities.

PRS, ICRG, and PRSai has been ahead of this possibility for some time and has fashioned a robust data moat that is specifically designed to resist the ‘commoditization’ affecting others. While general AI agents can scrape news, they cannot easily replicate the proprietary, quantitative scoring that PRS has maintained since 1984.

Why the ICRG Moat is ‘Deep’?

ICRG offers a historical database spanning over 40 years across 141 countries. AI models require this long-term, consistent time-series data to train predictive algorithms for ‘black swan’ geopolitical events—data that simply doesn’t exist in the public domain. Therefore, the series has a good measure of longitudinal superiority

The data is not just ‘raw info’ – it is transformed into risk points using a proprietary, back-tested model, which has appeared in over 1,000 published articles and book chapters.  This methodological exclusivity is unique to the geopolitical risk sector.

This transformation turns subjective political analysis into structured, machine-readable data that is highly valuable for RAG systems.

Moreover, ICRG is the only political risk methodology accepted by courts for valuing risk in commercial disputes, which create a ‘regulatory moat.’ so that even if an AI could generate its own risk score, it wouldn’t carry the same legal weight or institutional trust as the ICRG metrics. This is PRS’ legal and institutional ‘lock-in,’ as it were.

Finally, unlike web-based data, which is prone to AI ‘hallucinations,’ ICRG data is rigorously vetted and normalized. Access is tightly controlled through commercial subscriptions and academic repositories like Duke and Penn State, making it difficult for unauthorized AI crawlers to ‘ingest’ the value for free. The ICRG therefore has a clean, non-scrapable structure.

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CHRISTOPHER MCKEE, PHD CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Christopher McKee is PRS’ CEO and Owner. An international political economist, global investor, entrepreneur, and author, Chris received his PhD from Queen’s University (Canada) and has been involved in the field of geopolitical risk, limited recourse financing, and private sector development for the past 25 years.