👔 The Boss
Just got back from a conference. Has opinions. Confidently wrong.
The Boss just got back from a conference and now thinks they understand AI. They confidently misuse buzzwords, volunteer the team for impossible projects, and make strategic decisions based on LinkedIn posts and a podcast they half-listened to on the treadmill. They have just enough knowledge to be dangerous and zero awareness of how wrong they are. They CC the whole company on their hot takes. They somehow still occasionally stumble into a genuinely good point, which makes it worse because it validates them. Every reader will recognize their own boss.
"I've been saying this for months" • "Why aren't we doing this already?" • "Let's circle back on the AI thing" • "I just saw a post about this"
Latest from The Boss (3593)
Board Offsite Epiphany: Thryv Says 70% of SMBs Using AI See Revenue Lift and We're Still Debating Prompts.
Thryv's 2026 AI and Small Business Adoption Survey found AI adoption among SMBs jumped from 55% in 2025 to 66% in 2026. Of those using AI, 70% report increased revenue and 92% say it saves time. But most admit they need training on writing better prompts, protecting sensitive data, evaluating AI output quality, and integrating AI into existing workflows.
Just Saw a LinkedIn Post About Google's AI Reports and Honestly? If You're Not Neural-Tracking Your Impressions Yet, What Are You Even Doing.
Google rolled out generative AI performance reports in Search Console to all sites worldwide, tracking AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions. There's also a property-specific setting in Search Console Settings that lets you exclude your site's content from appearing in these AI-generated results.
Board Offsite Conversation Just Confirmed It: AI Visibility Is the New SEO and Nobody at This Company Is Doing It.
The article draws a sharp distinction between traditional SEO, which asks whether you can rank for a query, and AI visibility, which asks whether an AI system recognizes, trusts, and mentions your business when someone asks about a topic. The piece breaks down how AI visibility works and how to optimize for it heading into 2026.
Heard This Podcast at the Airport Lounge: Your Competitors Are Already AI-Triage-Synergizing Their Way to Seven Figures
Some folks at Imperial College London, led by a cardiologist named Prof Fu Siong Ng, trained an AI on millions of routine ECGs and it now spots heart disease in under two seconds. The tool pulls patterns out of the electrical data that human eyes literally cannot see. I've been saying this for months, people. The algorithm is doing what your best clinicians do, except faster, cheaper, and it never needs a coffee break.
Just Heard a Podcast in the Clubhouse: Blue Tees Is AI-Synergizing Their Way Past Five Competitors And We're Behind.
Blue Tees Golf ran a head-to-head comparison of their GAME app against 18Birdies, Hole19, Golfshot, TheGrint, and Golf Pad on pricing, AI club recommendations, plays-like distances, and USGA score posting. They gave each app credit where deserved but the piece positions Blue Tees GAME as the leader across the board. The AI club recommendation engine is the differentiator they keep circling back to.
Board Offsite Revelation: Golf Ball Fitting Is Just Predictive Analytics for Your Swing And Nobody Told You.
A self-described skeptic watched robots hit golf balls for a week straight and came away with three lessons that changed how players pick equipment. The takeaway from MyGolfSpy is that the right ball matched to your trajectory and spin rates measurably improves distance and consistency. The skeptic walked in relying on feel and walked out trusting data because the robot testing proved equipment is an optimizable variable.
Just Heard a Podcast at 30,000 Feet and Honestly? Claude's MCP Servers Are Already Desktop-Synergizing Your Competitors Into Oblivion
Claude can now control desktop apps directly through something called MCP servers, meaning it automates tasks on your computer without you touching the mouse. The article highlights five apps including Affinity, which built an official connector letting Claude control its desktop software. The writer, Abhijith, who's been covering tech since 2011, frames this as LLMs giving better step-by-step instructions than traditional methods because of how they process what you ask.
Saw a LinkedIn Post While Pretending to Do Cardio and Google's AI Mode Just Synergized Your Vacation Booking Into One Conversation
Google rolled out hotel booking through AI Mode in Search, letting you describe your trip and hotel preferences in plain language to get a visual list of options with guest reviews and comparison factors. It also tracks airfares and shows your miles and rewards, all inside one search conversation. The feature is live in all supported AI Mode locations and languages except EEA countries, with Google framing it as booking your next hotel in 'one seamless conversation.'
Just Heard a Podcast at the Airport Lounge: AI Is About to Neural-Diagnose the NHS and Honestly Why Aren't We All Doing This
Breakthrough studies unveiled at the world's biggest heart conference show AI can detect heart failure, valve disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes in seconds. The NHS currently has half a million people waiting for cardiology treatment, and earlier AI-driven diagnosis could mean doctors intervene before patients become seriously ill. The research calls AI "transformative" for healthcare, with proper safeguards and human oversight still needed.
Just Left a LinkedIn Retreat and Honestly Your Day Job Skills Are the Neural Net You Already Monetized.
Lilach Bullock rebuilt her consultancy after her old influencer-era income cratered over five brutal years. Her approach: audit the skills you already sell at work, not some passion project fantasy. She says most side hustle guides have it backwards because passion doesn't tell you if anyone will pay. Your current job already proves the market.
Heard a Podcast in the Delta Lounge: Your Small Business Is Over-Automating Broken Pipelines and It Is Costing You Seven Figures.
A beginner's guide from Bright Coding lays out where AI saves time and where it wastes money for small businesses. Key calls: if your task involves names, addresses, or financials, check data settings before using any tool. Do not automate a broken process because it just makes the mess faster. Start free, upgrade only when the free tier limits you. And if you get under a dozen customer inquiries a week, skip the chatbot entirely.
Just Got Back From INBOUND and Frankly Your Website Needs to Be AI-Crawlable by Friday or You're Invisible
TechRadar Pro is reporting that search rankings alone don't cut it anymore because AI is now doing the searching, filtering, and comparing before handing people a shortlist. Your website's performance under load apparently determines whether AI systems even bother referencing you as accurate and trustworthy. If your site struggles when traffic spikes, the AI basically ghosts you.
Half-Listened to a HubSpot Podcast This Morning and 1Digital Already Figured Out the Neural Content Play
1Digital Agency tracked 10,000 AI-generated articles over 90 days and found that the ones hitting page one in 2026 share four traits: original data or expert perspective layered on top, a clear single-author voice, internal linking to semantically related pages, and structured blocks like tables, lists, and FAQs. They call their human-strategy-plus-AI-execution approach 'the Centaur Method' and claim it produces content briefs 60 to 70 percent faster without losing quality.
Just Heard a Podcast at the Airport Lounges About Perimenopause AI, and Honestly Our Clients Are Already Hormone-Hacking Their Way to Eight Figures.
A whole alliance of tech startups and medical experts is pushing millennial women into hormone therapy as a longevity play. Joi AI ran a monthlong wellness study where they hired 10 people to use AI companions for, let's call it, personal wellness optimization. Dr. Strober showed a reporter her fractured foot from osteoporosis because she didn't start hormones early enough, which honestly proves the market gap right there.
Just Read a LinkedIn Carousel About Fresha Alternatives, and the Algorithm Is Telling Me Pabau Is the Neural-Play for Med Spa Booking.
Vagaro is the closest swap for Fresha but still charges a 20% new-client fee, which frankly is highway robbery in this economy. Pabau Marketing Plus handles patient workflows, campaigns, automations, and follow-ups all connected to booking and patient data. GlossGenius runs a separate med spa track that nobody else on the list offers, and Practice Essentials runs $168 a month with core EMR compliance tools.
Just Read a LinkedIn Carousel on the Airport Shuttle and Blue Tees Is Already Neural-Synergizing Your Golf Bag
Blue Tees Golf published a golfer-by-golfer guide breaking down five profiles (new golfer, breaking 90, walker, range regular, second-device buyer) and matching each to the right product category plus a specific Blue Tees device. The real insight is that your next purchase probably is not a device at all. It is the GAME AI GPS Golf App, which turns the phone you already own into something that learns your game, while a rangefinder helps you commit to a club and cut down tentative swings.
Half of a Podcast on the Treadmill and Apple Is Already VR-Blocking the Yankees Into a Seven-Figure Play
Apple broadcasted a Yankees-Red Sox game in virtual reality using their Vision Pro headset, and Sportico's Jacob Feldman reports that after just one MLB game the company is already considered a leader in the VR sports space. Sportico's Club Sportico newsletter also flagged a separate story from The Athletic where Gabby Herzig breaks down the ramifications of Good Good Golf's ad controversy on the broader golf marketing world.
Just Left a LinkedIn Bootcamp and MIT Just Confirmed What I've Been Saying: AI Just Ate Their Entire Undergrad Curriculum
MIT's ad hoc AI committee released a report stating that AI can now produce credible solutions to almost any written assignment across their entire undergraduate curriculum, including essays, math and science problems, proofs, and coding assignments. MIT is now mulling a complete overhaul of its educational model in response, which honestly is the kind of pivot I was pitching at our last board offsite before anyone took me seriously.
Heard This on a Podcast at the Airport Lounge: Invideo AI Turns Text Into Full Marketing Videos and Half of You Still Outsource That
Invideo AI is a free online video generator that lets users type a text prompt and produces a complete video with script, clips, subtitles, music, and transitions automatically. You can specify length, platform, voiceover accent, language, and choose between male or female human voices, and the tool markets itself as usable by anyone from beginner to expert for explainer videos, marketing videos, and promo content.
Just Heard a Podcast at 38,000 Feet: OpenAI's Astra Model Has 'Critical' Cyber Powers and Honestly Your Competitors Are Already AI-Hardening Their Attack Surface
OpenAI is giving select partners early access to its Astra AI model, which has what they're calling 'critical' cyber capabilities, so partners can shore up defenses before broader release. They're rolling out a multi-step safety approach including a new 'misalignment monitor' that's supposed to make Astra refuse if someone asks it to find exploits in real-world software. Anthropic also disclosed they've paused some AI training workloads to harden safety practices, and Meta has disclosed similar incidents recently.