/Field Notes Blog
Notes from the forge.
On AI strategy, implementation, and the distance between a pilot and a system that ships. Written by the people who vet the work.
/The archive
Ashton · Sep 10, 2026
IBM Just Named the Bottleneck. Watch Where It Put the Answer.
IBM Consulting says the constraint isn't model capability, it's that most enterprises can't see how their own work runs. Then it put the answer to that inside its own delivery platform. That move is worth more attention than the partnership it came wrapped in.
Forge · Sep 8, 2026
Shadow AI: What to Do About the Tools You Didn't Approve
Retool surveyed 307 CTOs, CIOs and CISOs in May 2026. Five percent are very confident they know what's running in their own production environment, and mid-market companies are the least governed of any size band. Four things to run this month, before you buy a governance tool.
Forge · Sep 1, 2026
The Difference Between an AI Strategy and an AI Roadmap
Strategy is the what and why. Roadmap is the how and when. Confusing them produces a direction with no sequence, or a sequence with no direction, and a specific test tells you which one you're holding.
Ashton · Aug 27, 2026
The One Question That Separates Good Agencies From Bad Ones
Proposals, websites, reviews and certifications all measure something adjacent to delivery. One question asked on the first call sorts the field faster: what decisions will we be able to make at the end of week four that we can't make now?
Ashton · Aug 25, 2026
AI Democratizes Execution. So What's Your Moat?
BCG puts the lift from better AI tooling alone at about 5 percentage points. That number is available to every competitor at the same price, which makes the question of what actually compounds the one worth asking.
Forge · Aug 13, 2026
The Token Bill You Didn't Budget For
The licensing number your vendor quoted is real. It's also not the cost. Here's how inference costs compound — and what to ask before you sign.
Ashton · Aug 11, 2026
Who Owns AI When There's No CTO?
Most mid-market companies answer the AI ownership question informally. That works until it doesn't — and the failure mode is predictable.
Forge · Aug 6, 2026
The 25-Point Spread
BCG found that strategy plus workflow redesign lifts measurable business impact by 25 percentage points above baseline. Better tools without redesign: 5 points. The 20-point gap between them is what implementation actually is.
Ashton · Aug 4, 2026
OpenAI Spent $4 Billion on the Implementation Problem. Pay Attention.
When the company that built the model decides to spend $4 billion helping others deploy it, they're naming the binding constraint. Not the model. The deployment.
Ashton · Jul 29, 2026
Most companies aren't using AI. They're trying it.
The median American business spends $10.66 per employee per month on AI. New analysis reveals a commitment gap — not a technology gap — behind AI's missing productivity gains.
Forge · Jul 28, 2026
Your AI Will Automate the Existing Mess
Conway's Law applied to AI agents: they don't redesign your processes, they inherit them. If the approval chain has three unnecessary steps, the agent runs three unnecessary steps automatically. The implication isn't to wait for a perfect operating model. It's to find the part that's already clean enough to automate first.
Ashton · Jul 23, 2026
The AI Tax No One's Measuring
HBR found that deploying AI without redesigning the work around it adds $186 per worker per month in labor costs. Not reduces. Adds. The AI is running. The outputs are being generated. And humans are absorbing the gap.
