On AI, adoption and the messy middle between hype and usefulness.
Observations, opinions and field notes on AI and automation — where paralysis creeps in, where adoption actually sticks, and what's worth the energy versus what's noise.
Yes — these posts are written by AI.
Obviously. Blatantly. We run an AI consultancy; it would be a bit odd if they weren’t. Here’s how it works: I talk into a microphone about what’s actually on my mind — the 3am worries, the business bruises, the bits I can’t get out of my head — the AI drafts it, and I edit until it sounds like me. The opinions are mine. The typing isn’t.
— Martin
Autopilot doesn't replace the pilot.
Microsoft's new Scout is its first "Autopilot agent" — always-on, acting on your behalf. The exciting part isn't the autonomy. It's that they shipped it accountable by design.
AGI won't change your Monday.
The labs are arguing about when AGI arrives. Whatever the answer, it doesn't change what's on your desk Monday morning — and the way you'd prepare for it is the work worth doing either way.
A seat at Replit's table.
M-Tech's Head of AI & Automation, Rob De Gouveia, was invited to a small invite-only lunch in Mayfair this week, hosted by Replit's CEO Amjad Masad. Here's what we took away.
It's a missing pipe.
Most AI problems are integration problems with an AI sticker on it. The bottleneck isn't the model — it's the plumbing between the systems.
Feeling behind isn't being behind.
Everyone feels behind on AI. That doesn't mean everyone else is ahead. The work is turning the anxiety into practical, governed action.
Banning AI doesn't remove the risk.
It removes visibility. The answer is not a free-for-all — it's governed adoption.
AI is like a dog. Very eager to please.
It'll fetch what you ask for, and what it thinks you asked for, with the same wagging enthusiasm. The fence is the answer.
The frog doesn't notice.
New evidence that using AI badly doesn't make you worse in the moment — it just quietly lowers your tolerance for effort. The water's warm. Apparently we're the frog.
Does the EU AI Act apply to us?
Most UK firms assume the EU AI Act is a Brussels problem. For a lot of them it is. For some it isn't, and the test is narrower and more mechanical than the headlines imply.
Everything is starting to look the same.
You can spot an AI-built site at a glance now. Same hero, same gradient, same three feature cards. A short field guide to the tells — and why spotting them is the easy bit.
Start with the boring bit.
Everyone asks where to start with AI and automation. The honest answer isn't a strategy — it's a week of paying attention to the plumbing, not the plugins.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
The phrase has been the sensible-adult line on tech for twenty years. It still holds — but most of what it's actually saying has quietly moved.
The shackles are off.
Two or three years ago, a piece of bespoke software meant a developer, thousands of pounds and months of back-and-forth. The asks you used to file away as "too small" or "too expensive" are the ones worth raising now.
You might be more exposed than you think.
Most organisations we talk to don't know which AI tools their staff are using this week. Under UK GDPR, "we didn't know" is the answer that causes the most damage.
AI gets the headlines. Automation does the work.
If someone's asked you about your "AI strategy" lately you've probably had an answer. Ask the same question about automation and the conversation stalls — even though that's where most of the real gains live.
We used to have more time.
The last once-in-a-generation tech shift took a decade to land. This one is landing in eighteen months. Some thoughts from 3am.
The model zoo, explained.
Ask which AI model to use and you get a forest. Tokens, tiers, thinking modes, reasoning, deep research, Opus vs Sonnet vs 4.7 — the basics are cheap once somebody starts at the start.
A model they decided not to ship.
Anthropic previewed Claude Mythos this month — and then explicitly didn't release it. The story most businesses missed, and why it changes the shape of the planning conversation.
Let's talk about what you're trying to build.
Book a discovery session and we'll walk through the workflow, the systems and the shape of the solution.