Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) form a triad of converging emerging technologies, that mutually benefits each other’s. The impact of such triadic dimension on the structuration of innovation ecosystems and on the definition on ecosystem strategy (notably for non-digital native players) become a variable considered as critical by the literature but that remain poorly empirically explored to date. In this article, we address this theoretical gap by exploring how three focal (non-digital native) organizations develop their ecosystem strategies regarding the AI/5G/IoT triad. Our results point at their capability to leverage infrastructural assets to position themselves at the centre of the innovation ecosystem they contribute to make emerge. They accelerate the integration of the triadic ecosystem by offering an opportunity to their partners to develop and test devices that articulate the three technologies in advance in comparison with other competitors. These results shed a new light on the literature of ecosystem strategies by highlighting the particularities introduced by the triadic dimension of the AI/5G/IoT ecosystems.
