How to tell whether your AI rollout actually saved time
A four-column time log any owner can run for two weeks. It shows whether AI saved hours, where review ate them, and which part a company memory can fix.
Insights
Notes from running our own companies.
What we learn putting sales follow-up, back office systems and AI to work, first in our own businesses and then in our clients'.
- 3 min read
- 3 min read
Readers mark down anything that sounds machine-written
Customers trust copy less once they suspect AI wrote it, even when a person did. Generic output now has a sales cost. What helps, and what does not.
- 4 min read
Write the AI pilot's stop rule before you write the prompt
Most AI pilots are not killed. They fade, and nobody records why. Six lines to write on day one so a pilot either earns its place or ends cleanly.
- 3 min read
Every enquiry got an answer. None of them got recorded.
Our AI assistant replied to every new enquiry on our messaging line and saved none of them where we could see. What went wrong, and what to test on yours.
- 3 min read
Our approval step had one flaw: you could not read the draft
We built a human approval step for AI-drafted client work. Earlier this month we found the approver could not see the whole draft. How gates go blind.
- 3 min read
McKinsey's 2026 AI survey, read from a 30-person firm
Nearly every company now uses AI, and the share seeing profit from it has barely moved in a year. Smaller firms trail on agents. Where that gap comes from.
- 3 min read
The weekly report nobody reads, and the one nobody trusts
Reports pile up because each was asked for once. AI makes them cheaper to produce and easier to ignore. A short register decides which ones earn a place.
- 3 min read
Buy the tool after you can draw the process on one page
A new CRM or AI assistant will copy whatever process you already have, including the gaps. Draw the process first. It costs a page and an afternoon.
- 3 min read
Six questions to ask before you buy an AI agent
Gartner expects over 40% of agentic AI projects to be cancelled by 2027, and says many agents on sale are not agents. Six questions to ask in the demo.
- 3 min read
Can you read what your AI remembers about your company?
AI memory features remember things you never asked them to and forget things you needed. A business needs memory it can open, edit and audit.
- 3 min read
More AI apps, the same re-explaining: notes on tool sprawl
Most firms now run several AI tools, and each one has been told a different version of the business. Count them, then decide where the context lives.
- 3 min read
Your team feels faster with AI. Has anyone timed it?
In a 2025 trial, experienced developers were 19% slower with AI while believing they were faster. Why the feeling and the clock disagree.