AI Transformation How Does an AI Product Evolve After You Put It Into Production? Some of the most valuable capabilities in an AI system cannot be specified in advance. They emerge after people begin using the product, learning what the technology can do, and redesigning the work around those new capabilities.
AI Transformation Why Does AI Need Product Management, Not Just Project Management? Users often can't fully specify an AI system before they experience what the technology can do. Middle Out Design offers a different approach: build, learn and refine.
AI Transformation How Is AI Transformation Different From AI Adoption? AI adoption measures whether people are using AI. AI transformation asks whether AI has changed how the organization actually works, from workflows and decision making to roles, processes and access to expertise.
Chief AI Officer What Does Your Org Chart Say About Your AI Strategy? Where a Chief AI Officer reports reveals how a company thinks about AI. The right structure depends on the mandate. What matters is whether the CAIO’s reporting relationship, authority and decision rights align with what the organization expects them to accomplish.
Enterprise AI What Questions Should an Executive Ask Before Approving an AI Implementation? Executives don’t need to predict which AI model will win. They need to ensure their AI implementations can adapt. Here are the questions to ask about model routing, abstraction and evals before approving an AI investment.
AI Transformation How Can AI Make an Organization More Productive? Most AI applications focus on individual productivity. Jay Galbraith's information processing framework suggests a bigger opportunity: using AI to increase the productivity and intelligence of the organization.
AI Opportunity Small Language Models vs. Large Language Models: Does Bigger Always Mean Better? What is the difference between a Small Language Model and a Large Language Model? OpenAg shows how specialized AI can reduce computing requirements, deliver domain-specific expertise and potentially make advanced knowledge accessible to more people.
Chief AI Officer Why Does Your Company Need a Chief AI Officer? Why create a Chief AI Officer when a company already has a CIO? The case for a CAIO is not about owning AI technology. It is about orchestrating enterprise transformation across technology, workflows, people and business outcomes.
Generative AI Creativity Unconstrained by Cost Generative AI imagery is about more than reducing photography costs. It can expand creative possibilities, enable image testing at scale, and eventually make personalized imagery practical.
Ecommerce The Next Frontier of Ecommerce CRO: AI Generated Images Why the biggest untapped lever in conversion optimization isn’t copy, layout, or pricing — it’s imagery.
AI Strategy Two Futures for Artificial Intelligence There are two competing visions of artificial intelligence. In one, humans work for AI. In the other, AI works for humans. The future we choose will determine whether AI replaces human capability or expands it.
Tech History Overclaiming Is a Silicon Valley Tradition Overclaiming is a Silicon Valley tradition. The internet promised perfect ad attribution. The market believed it for decades. The AI industry is falling into the same trap. But everything about this era is moving faster. The correction may arrive before adoption is locked in.
AI Productivity The One Thing That Will Immediately Make AI More Useful for You Every time you open a new AI session you are starting from zero. The AI has no idea who you are or how you work. Context artifacts fix that. The more foundational knowledge you capture and feed to AI systems, the faster and better the output becomes. Start with one document. Your brand voice.
Tech History The AI Industry Is Rediscovering Something Old Proprietary data as competitive advantage is not a new idea. In 1969 David Ness co-founded Interactive Market Systems, building programmatic advertising on a mainframe. The right first question hasn't changed in fifty years.
Agentic Commerce Agentic Commerce and the Reality of Debit Cards Most agentic commerce conversations assume a customer with a credit card. That is not most of America. For a significant portion of this country, the only form of electronic payment is a debit card. One agent error and the rent check bounces.
AI Strategy Public Polling on AI Is Consistently Negative. Let Me Explain Why. Mobile brought everyone to the table. AI is pulling up the chairs. The people most affected by AI job displacement are the same people who lack the sophistication to participate in the AI economy.
AI Opportunity AI Plus Beginner's Mind Steve Jobs called the PC a bicycle for the mind. Think of AI as a Formula 1 car. The people who will thrive are not the most technically sophisticated. They are the ones who know what they want to create.
AI Governance Your Product Team May Have Already Given Away the IP When your team types a proprietary formulation into a public AI tool, that information leaves your control. A federal court ruling and a Proskauer Rose framework make clear the trade secret and patent exposure is real.
AI Governance Public vs. Private AI: What Most Organizations Don't Know That $20 a month subscription your employees are using is public AI. Not private. A federal court ruled in February 2026 that documents created in a public AI platform destroyed attorney-client privilege. Most organizations don't know this yet.
AI Strategy The Spreadsheet Moment: Where AI Is Right Now Spreadsheets worked beautifully in the hands of the person who built them. Then they tried to share them. AI is following the same pattern. Most organizations have the prototypes. Very few have the architect.
Tech History David Ness and the Origin of Decision Support Systems David Ness was my professor, my mentor, and my friend. He built the intellectual foundation for what AI is trying to do now. Wharton dissolved the Decision Sciences department in 1993. They didn't understand what they had.
Agentic Commerce AI Is Real. Agentic Shopping May Not Be. The wave is real. Not everything riding it is. The organizations that win identify which AI capabilities will fundamentally change how they compete. Identifying the paradigm shift is the skill. Anyone can chase the fad.
AI Strategy The Prescription: Where to Start With AI The first question isn't which model to use. It's where in the organization do decisions actually get made. Map the decision architecture first. Deploy the technology second. Most organizations do this in the wrong order.
Tech History We Planted a Flag Before the Category Had a Name In 1997 I co-founded PriceSCAN before comparison shopping had a name. The rules are different early. Access that exists now won't exist later. Some advantages can't be acquired at any price once the window closes.
AI Results Two Buckets. Clean Record. Both Directions. Two years of production AI experiments produced a clean finding. Every experiment designed to replace a person failed. Every experiment designed to enhance a person won. The record is clean in both directions.