ARTICLES · DUE DILIGENCE, ON US
Read the guides before you commit.
Decision guides and engineering notes on choosing, scoping, building and running AI systems that keep working in daily operations, long after launch.
- Read guides to choosing and building useful AI systems.
- Explore the engineering work behind reliable operation.
- Test a proposal before you commit budget or people to it.
Strategy
You Are Approving A Build Nobody Has Checked
The proposal has a number, a timeline and a team who believe in it. Most AI projects are lost in that room, because nobody independent has checked the decision it changes, the data it runs on, or the systems it must plug into.
A Restatement Is A Deadline Nobody Can Move
A financial restatement adds a second period of urgent work to the process that produced the error, on dates set by regulation. Build the evidence and controls needed to meet those dates without repeating the same error.
The Data Problems Nothing Warns You About
Lost detail, duplicate records and unread storage can undermine a working system without raising a single error. Trace the data path from the source to the point of use to find what your one workflow actually needs from it.
Which Broken Workflow Should Become Software First
Several workflows need fixing, but only one can go first, and that choice is where the money is usually lost. Test the consequence, access, ownership and readiness of each, then fund the workflow you can write a target for.
Buy The Commodity, Build Only What Is Yours
Decide which part of a system you need to own before choosing to build, buy or partner. Everything that fails that test is a purchase, an assembly of parts someone else already runs, or something that should not be built.
The Work Does Not Carry Its Own Context
Before anyone can act on a piece of work, they go hunting for facts in the CRM, the billing system, old mail and a colleague's memory. Give people and AI agents the context with the work, so they spend less time searching for it.
Your System Is Getting Worse And Nothing Warns You
The system went live, it works, and nobody owns it. Costs creep, quality ages, and every screen anyone looks at stays green all along. At one hedge fund, fixing the data under a system like that cut storage costs by more than 60%.
Nobody Can Say What Your AI Tools Return
Finance can total what every AI tool costs this afternoon. Nobody can total what those tools gave back, and that is why they all keep renewing. Register every tool, define impact per category, and put one owner on the spend.