Generally, established companies have a lot of trouble, and often fail, adopting when the rules of business change.
In this case, Shell is having a lot of trouble adopting to carbon-free (or neurtral) energy.
IMO: I think the best approach is to seek out carbon-free (or neutral) energy business models and disrupt Shell out of business. From Shell's POV, the best thing they can do is invest in the disrupters and have them organically displace their existing fossil-fuel based businesses.
Agreed, Shell is f'd.
Increasingly I wonder if Apple is in the same boat. An AI-based phone from SpaceX with Starlink connectivity, or from Nvidia, would disrupt their entire business model. And they don't really seem to get AI.
Huh? Apple already partnered with Globalstar for satellite connectivity which I think will come to fruition for more general connectivity long long before any of Elmocorp figures how to make phones at the quality of iPhones or even $Galaxy_Flagship.
And no one has figured how to make AI work for the kinds of tasks people ask phones to do. It might be possible but no one's yet made it work so it's hard to argue that anyone is "behind" on this front when no one has brought even a commercial AI-based voice assistant to market which is has the lowest barrier to entry and the highest user tolerance for failure.
So I think you're right that a lot of old-guard tech is becoming too big to be agile but I'm less sure about the thing that will actually disrupt them.
To say this is to not know how Apple operates. They have been shipping local AI in phones for a decade now. Every phone has one of the best neural processors out there. Apple is better prepared than anyone. And that's before considering their remarkable restraint to not release something until they are happy with it. They are 100% working on LLMs and I'm sure they will do it their own way. This isnt some sort of fanboy post, it's their story. From OLED to the Mac transition to Apple silicon. Slowly, then all at once.
Xerox's copierheads. Except the copiers are also Dutch oven-ing the planet, a good chunk of our copiers are made in regressive absolute monarchies operated in league with far-right religious conservatives, and the most powerful country in the world is politically captured by the need to provide cheap copiers to businesses.
Generally, established companies have a lot of trouble, and often fail, adopting when the rules of business change.
In this case, Shell is having a lot of trouble adopting to carbon-free (or neurtral) energy.
IMO: I think the best approach is to seek out carbon-free (or neutral) energy business models and disrupt Shell out of business. From Shell's POV, the best thing they can do is invest in the disrupters and have them organically displace their existing fossil-fuel based businesses.