Short, honest writing on what is working, what is not, and what we are learning inside real organisations.
The hyperscalers have spoken. Microsoft, Google, and AWS have each published production reference architectures for agentic AI. The naming differs, the services differ, but the underlying patterns are remarkably similar. This matters because it signals where enterprise AI is heading and what…
In my last newsletter, I shared Career Helper, a Claude skill for job seekers. I mentioned I'd follow up with what I've learned from building 50+ skills. This is that follow-up. I've been building with Claude Code since its launch in February 2025. When Anthropic formalised the skills feature in…
I don't know why, but January is often a forced career transition moment, so it seems now is a good time to subvert the newsletter to talk about this Claude skill. It's a pretty useful demonstration of what you can do with a skill, making use of all sorts of techniques. Next newsletter, I will…
All of the Major providers have cook books, or prompt writing guides. With the release of chatGPT 5.1 there are a few changes you can make to when you are creating prompts to get better results out of it. I know this looks a little alien, and is a bit more effort. Do I use these approaches all of…
In October 2025, Channel 4 aired a documentary about AI and employment. The presenter, Aisha Gaban, delivered her lines with the slightly stilted cadence you expect from documentary narration. She looked professional. She sounded credible. And at the end of the programme, she revealed something…
Customer Profile A well-established financial services firm with a 50-year legacy, over 350 employees, and consistently strong margins. Renowned for its trust, expertise, and people-driven workflows, the firm had long been a leader in its space. But as AI-enabled competitors emerged, pressure…
Why Mid-Sized Firms Do Not Need to Lead the AI Race, but Do Need to Catch Up Over the last two years, we have worked closely with dozens of mid-sized organisations to understand how they are responding to the acceleration of artificial intelligence. While headlines focus on disruption and…
In boardrooms across the UK, a familiar conversation is playing out. Someone asks if the business is doing anything with AI. The answers are often vague. A chatbot here. A small experiment there. Perhaps someone in IT is trying out a language model. These early steps might feel like progress, but…
Introduction: The Unstoppable Wave of AI Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept; it is already reshaping the core of knowledge-based work. Over the past two years, my team and I have studied, consulted with, and advised more than 100 mid-sized businesses on AI readiness,…
A Pattern-Based Approach While organisations rush to implement AI agents, they're overlooking something crucial: the patterns for successful AI agent implementation already exist in their businesses. After working through numerous AI agent developments, I've noticed a striking insight - we're…