AI Native Globalization Computational Pre-Adaptive Intelligence and the Reconfiguration of International Expansion

This working paper introduces Computational Pre-Adaptive Intelligence (CPAI) as a new computational mechanism that reshapes international business theory by repositioning internationalization as a simulation-augmented, pre-adaptive process. Unlike traditional models that conceptualize international expansion as an experience-driven and cognition-centered sequence of managerial decisions, this study argues that emerging generative AI systems are increasingly capable of producing structured strategic alternatives prior to managerial cognition and resource commitment. CPAI operates through a layered architecture of constraint, simulation, and structuring processes that collectively generate and organize foreign market entry possibilities. This enables firms to explore and evaluate internationalization pathways ex ante through computational simulation, effectively shifting the decision architecture from option evaluation to option generation. The paper further develops a hybrid agency framework in which internationalization outcomes emerge from the interaction between managerial cognition and computational systems. Agency is reconceptualized as a distributed, socio-technical construct rather than a firm-contained attribute. Overall, the study contributes to international business theory by introducing a computationally pre-structured view of global strategy formation and highlighting how AI systems increasingly shape the possibility space of international expansion.