Even LLMs Need a Firewall
A practical reflection on why LLM firewalls, tool gates, and deterministic controls are really an old Stoic idea: not every thought deserves to become an action.
Writing archive
Writing
Essays on agentic systems, governance, operations, incentives, and the work of making AI useful in real organisations.
119 pieces
Essays and notes
Published archive
Page 1 of 5
Thank You, Mum
A personal thank-you to my mum for the patience, belief, faith, strength, and hours she gave me as a dyslexic child learning to read and write, and for what AI has finally helped me unlock.
When The Tool Can Be Turned Off
A researched operational resilience piece on the abrupt suspension of access to Anthropic Fable 5 and Mythos 5, and what it means for European organisations relying on critical US software and AI services.
AI Agents for CEOs: Start Simple
A simple CEO guide to trying AI agents: run one useful demo, keep data bounded, back up the working state, and start with one repeatable workflow.
Release Us From The Tyranny Of The Wizard
A reflective thought piece on moving from rigid software wizards and menu trees toward agentic tools that can work from intent, while still respecting the moments where precision matters.
Why Isn't Every Menu Agent-Ready Yet?
A short observation from a Stockholm restaurant on why small businesses should make menus, specials, local context, and choices easy for personal AI agents to understand.
What If Everybody Knew Everything They Needed To Know?
A reflective essay on what happens when personal agentic systems make public knowledge, local government information, product evidence, and hidden context understandable to ordinary citizens.
When The Agent Thinks You Are Wrong
A research-backed reflection on how agentic systems should challenge humans when they believe a decision is wrong: respectful escalation, evidence, thresholds, stop-line rules, and human override.
Management Is The Missing Literacy
A follow-on to the agentic-worker education piece, arguing that management should become a general literacy: setting outcomes, judging quality, managing attention, using AI well, and taking responsibility for decisions.
We Need To Teach Children How To Manage Agentic Workers
A reflective, research-backed article arguing that the next school skill is not only AI literacy, but learning how to manage interrupting agentic workers: context switching, delegation, judgement, and knowing when to pause before accepting a recommended action.
Getting Things Done With Agentic Workers
A practical reflection on using Orchistra and agentic workers to cover the skills a small consulting business needs, while treating token spend as operating capital that has to be watched.
AI Is Not One Thing
A gentle argument for using more precise AI language: chatbot, generative AI, agentic system, local AI, foundation model, AI system, or safety-critical AI, depending on what we actually mean.
The New Product Manager May Be An Engineer Who Reskilled
AI is changing product-to-engineering ratios, but the deeper shift is capability: product managers now need engineering-grade judgement, and senior engineers may be closer to the new product role than many expect.
Before There Is No Work Left, We Have Human Debt To Pay Down
A reflection on agentic AI, productivity, and the backlog of work society has avoided because there has never been enough time.
What Agentic AI Is Teaching Me About Teaching Humans
A reflection from teaching the University of Exeter MSc Financial Technology hackathon: clearer outcomes, examples of good work, tasks, roles, mindset, and room to think help humans as much as agents.
Please Give European Companies A Safe AI Lane
A respectful request to EU policymakers: keep the safety and rights goals, but make practical AI adoption easier through sovereign options, regulatory sandboxes, and clear approval routes for ordinary companies.
When Hiring Gets Harder, AI Gets Easier
A thoughtful opinion piece on how higher employment costs can unintentionally speed up AI adoption, and why the progressive answer is not to fight automation but to make work more productive, humane, and worth hiring for.
Governance Slop
Governance slop is what happens when boards mistake policies, assumptions, and half-read papers for actual oversight. An opinion piece on the gap between governance theatre and governing.
If IT Made You Different, Start AI At The Edge
For companies whose old systems are a real differentiator, the first AI move should not be to touch the core. Start with small, separated, read-only edge POCs that earn trust before expanding.
Can Our Digital Twins Talk To Each Other?
A public invitation to people working on digital twins, A2A, MCP, and agent-to-agent communication to compare notes and run small public-safe experiments.
Your AI POC Needs Time, Not Just Technology
AI and agentic proofs of concept fail when they are treated like normal IT projects instead of onboarding a new kind of team member.
Your AI Is Guessing What You Mean
AI hallucination often starts with a bad brief: missing context, missing source links, and no safe moment to ask.
Make Your Website Agent-First
A practical note on how marketing changes when AI agents, not only humans, are researching products and making shortlists.
Start With A Safe Folder, Not A Live System
A practical operating note for introducing AI agents safely: start with a copied folder, safe material, clear project rules, no secrets, human review, and expansion only after the controls work.