Insights

Field notes from the AI frontline.

Short, opinionated, and written by the people doing the work.

Strategy

AI strategy for SMBs is not the Fortune 500 playbook

Most AI strategy templates assume a $50M technology budget. Here is what actually works at $5M–$250M in revenue.

May 12, 2026 · 2 min read

Agentic AI

Agentic AI: what actually changes in 2026

Agents stopped being a demo and started being a line item. Here is what to deploy now, and what to wait on.

May 2, 2026 · 2 min read

Operations

RPA is not dead. It just grew up.

Robotic process automation got dismissed as boring middleware. Combined with LLMs, it is the highest-ROI automation most SMBs are not running.

Apr 22, 2026 · 2 min read

Leadership

Fractional AI leader vs full-time hire: when each one wins

A full-time head of AI is a 12-month commitment to a problem you may not understand yet. A fractional leader is a 90-day decision.

Apr 8, 2026 · 2 min read

Strategy

The AI readiness assessment that actually works

Most AI readiness audits are bingo cards. Here is the four-dimension assessment we run before any pilot.

Mar 29, 2026 · 2 min read

Strategy

Build vs buy vs wrap: the LLM stack decision

You do not need to train a model. You probably do not need to fine-tune one either. Here is the decision tree.

Mar 15, 2026 · 2 min read

Agentic AI

Evals: the unglamorous thing that separates pilots from production

Every AI project dies in the same place: nobody built the eval harness. Here is how to do it on day one.

Mar 4, 2026 · 2 min read

Case Notes

The five mistakes we see in every first AI project

Picking the wrong use case is mistake number one. Numbers two through five are also picking the wrong use case.

Feb 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Operations

Why your data is not as bad as the consultants say

'Your data isn't ready' is the most expensive sentence in enterprise software. It is usually wrong.

Feb 5, 2026 · 2 min read

Leadership

AI governance for companies that actually have to ship

Governance does not mean a 40-page policy. It means three pages, three people, and a weekly review.

Jan 22, 2026 · 2 min read

Strategy

The 90-day AI pilot template

What we do in the first 90 days of every engagement, week by week.

Jan 8, 2026 · 2 min read

Leadership

Saying no to AI use cases is part of the job

The most valuable thing a fractional AI leader does is tell the CEO which ideas to kill.

Dec 18, 2025 · 2 min read

Strategy

What an AI roadmap actually looks like

A real AI roadmap is one page, four quarters, and three numbers per quarter. Anything more is theater.

Dec 4, 2025 · 2 min read

Agentic AI

Agent eval metrics that actually matter

Forget 'accuracy.' Measure task-completion, escalation rate, and time-to-resolve.

Nov 19, 2025 · 2 min read

Operations

The economics of LLM cost-per-task

If you cannot compute the cost-per-task of your AI workflow, you do not have a workflow. You have a science project.

Nov 4, 2025 · 2 min read

Case Notes

From pilot to production: the hard mile

The pilot is the easy part. Production is where most AI projects die. Here is how to survive the transition.

Oct 21, 2025 · 2 min read

Strategy

AI and the billable hour

Law firms, accountants, agencies — your business model assumes humans are slow. AI breaks that assumption.

Oct 7, 2025 · 2 min read

Operations

RPA and LLMs: the modern automation stack

RPA for the deterministic parts, LLMs for the messy parts. Together they cover 90% of back-office work.

Sep 23, 2025 · 2 min read

Case Notes

What we learned shipping 40 AI pilots

Patterns from four years of pilots — what worked, what failed, what we would not do again.

Sep 9, 2025 · 2 min read

Leadership

The board conversation about AI

What to tell your board about AI when they ask — and they will ask.

Aug 26, 2025 · 2 min read