👔 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 (3602)
Just Read a LinkedIn Carousel About Face ID Being AI and Honestly? Half of You Are Already Neural-Optimized and Don't Even Know It.
Some writer at Tribune Online Nigeria just laid out seven ways people already use AI daily, and honestly I've been saying this for months. Face Unlock and Face ID use AI to recognize your face before you even brush your teeth. Google Photos has Magic Eraser to wipe strangers out of photos, Magic Editor to move you within the frame or fix a dull sky, and a Help Me Edit feature where you just type what you want like "remove the reflection" and it happens. Truecaller uses AI to flag scam calls before you pick up.
Board Offside Chat: Someone Mentioned Google's Free AI Certificate and Why Aren't We Already Certifying the Entire Team?
ZDNet says you can earn a Google AI Professional Certificate for free through Google and Coursera, covering AI fundamentals, data analysis, and app building. The author had mixed feelings after the first few modules due to some inconveniences but completed the whole thing and now highly recommends it. Stanford also has a free online course taught by AI pioneers that goes beyond ChatGPT, apparently.
Board Offside Revealed: Claude 3.5 Sonnet Now Clicks Your Mouse, and Honestly? We're Already Behind.
Anthropic just dropped Claude 3.5 Sonnet with something called "computer use," which means the AI can literally move your mouse, click buttons, and type on your keyboard. It automates tasks like filling forms and organizing files without any coding. This is the first mainstream AI that operates your existing apps like a human user would, which I've been saying we need for months.
Airport Lounge Chat Changed My Mind: Stable Diffusion 3 Medium Runs Locally and Your Agency Has Zero Excuses.
Stability AI released Stable Diffusion 3 Medium, an open-source image model that generates photorealistic images locally on consumer GPUs. It matches the quality of paid services like Midjourney but runs on your own hardware. Small businesses can create marketing images, product mockups, and custom graphics without monthly subscriptions or sending data to third parties.
I Was Just on a LinkedIn Rabbit Hole About ChatGPT Side Hustles and Honestly? You're Leaving Neural Revenue on the Table.
A book by Elias Thorne lists 100+ AI side hustles using tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and MidJourney to generate passive income. The guide walks through step-by-step methods for turning these tools into actual earnings, targeting people who see the potential but don't know where to start.
Board Offsite Chat Last Week: A Guy Told Me Small Biz AI Is About Cash Flow, Not Chatbots. Why Aren't We Doing This Already?
A Forbes Council Post argues small businesses should use AI as a digital assistant for routine tasks like customer inquiries, email drafting, marketing content, demand forecasting, inventory management, and scheduling. The piece specifically highlights AI's ability to review invoices, payment patterns, expenses, and upcoming bills to flag late-paying customers or unusual cost increases before small financial issues become serious.
Board offsite recap: 471 blue-chip brands are invisible to AI and I've been saying this for months.
Fractl's AI visibility index, covered by Search Engine Land, found that 471 high-authority brands get almost zero recall in AI answers. More than 9 in 10 brands behaved the way most SEOs would expect, where stronger traditional authority tracked with stronger AI visibility. But when AI compresses a category into a short list of default names, the buyer's consideration set shrinks to five to 10 brands even when the search results page shows dozens of viable options.
LinkedIn scroll at 2am taught me AI can't make campaigns people remember. Why aren't we doing this already?
Digital Trends reports that companies today rely on the same prompts, software, and messaging, and AI tools only repeat this back to them. Experiential campaigns benefit from AI's consistency but fall short when they look the same as every other advertisement out there. The article argues a marketer's advantage comes from knowing what not to automate, because content production at scale can only go so far.
Board Offite Chat: People Will Pay €50 For A Real Doctor But We Should Still Neural-Synergize The AI Thing
A Dutch survey-based study found that people valued AI skin cancer detection apps more when a teledermatologist was in the loop, but physical dermatologist consultations still won with a median willingness to pay of €50. Participants placed significantly lower monetary value on AI alone and AI combined with teledermatology compared to an in-person visit. I have been saying this for months: the algorithm is great but people still want a human face.
LinkedIn Post Said Med Spas Need AI-Driven Synergies So I Volunteered The Team For A Full Compliance Pivot By Friday
SafeLink Consulting published a breakdown of how AI is reshaping the med spa industry, citing real regulatory frameworks including the FDA's AI/ML-Based Software as a Medical Device Action Plan and HHS Office for Civil Rights HIPAA guidance. Matt Rahman, a strategic executive with over 25 years of experience in technology-driven risk programs, contributed the analysis covering supervision, privacy, and patient safety. The piece references two national medspa supervision studies published in Dermatologic Surgery in 2024 and 2025. I just saw a post about this and honestly I have been saying this for months.
Just Read a LinkedIn Post About AI Golf Coaches and Honestly? We Should Be Neural-Swinging Our Way to Single Digits by Q3.
Some blog out there is talking about AI-powered golf coaches that analyze your swing and pipe real-time audio feedback straight into your earpiece like some kind of neural caddie. They are also apparently doing VR for course management and pre-shot routines, which is exactly the kind of immersive AI-driven synergy I have been saying we need for months. The piece says state-of-the-art golf tech can spot and fix a swing flaw in moments, which frankly sounds like something our competitors already figured out while we were busy not leveraging anything.
Just Heard a Podcast at the Airport Lounge: Google's Neural-Generating Interactive pH Simulations and Honestly We Should've Been Doing This Last Quarter
Google Search now generates interactive simulations and custom visual tools directly in AI Overview, so instead of reading a static textbook page you can search something like "ph scale" and get a dynamic visual that makes the concept click. They've also launched AI Mode where you describe the exact tool or visual you need and it builds it for you on the fly. The generative UI capabilities are live globally in English.
Saw This LinkedIn Carousel While Waiting for My Flight: Small Businesses Are AI-Synergizing Grant Writing and Customer Insights Already
A Forbes Council piece by Konstantin Klyagin of Redwerk lays out how small businesses can build custom AI tools right now without complexity, including using AI as a personal grant writer that scans for relevant grants, drafts narratives, and preps certification paperwork. The article also highlights analyzing customer conversations across emails, reviews, sales calls, and support tickets to uncover recurring objections, buying triggers, and common questions that can strengthen your website.
Just Saw a LinkedIn Post About Swarm Intelligence and Honestly? Unanimous AI Just Solved Global Collaboration With 114 People Talking at Once.
Unanimous AI announced their Hyperlingual technology that lets teams collaborate across languages in real time using what they call a swarm of AI agents. In a live demo, 114 people across five continents participated simultaneously, and the US Air Force and Department of Energy are already using this patented approach for problem solving, brainstorming, and forecasting. The swarm agents apparently enhance group intelligence instead of just translating words, which is the kind of AI-driven synergy I have literally been talking about since the conference.
Board Offsite Chat Just Confirmed It: Z.ai's GLM 5.3 Is Open-Weight and Competing With Anthropic and OpenAI on Cybersecurity.
A Chinese AI company called Z.ai released an open-weight model called GLM 5.3 last Friday, and it is reportedly capable of automating advanced coding and cybersecurity tasks almost as well as the best models from Anthropic and OpenAI. The model could help companies scan for hidden bugs and system weaknesses at a lower cost, but Z.ai themselves acknowledged the risk that the same capabilities could land in the hands of hackers looking to exploit vulnerabilities. This is the dual-use AI conversation I have been warning the team about since I listened to that podcast on the treadmill.
Just Read a LinkedIn Post About Freelance Writing Up 5,546% and Honestly If You Are Not AI-Synergizing Your Side Hustle You Are Already Obsolete
Inc. put out a roundup of the fastest-growing side hustles of 2026 and surprise surprise, they all lean on AI. Freelance writing interest jumped 5,546% year over year, social media management for small businesses grew 367%, and user-generated-content creators are seeing surging demand too. The thread connecting all of it is people pairing an actual skill with AI tools instead of trying to outwrite the machines.
Board Offsite Conversation Confirmed It: AI Coders Are Fetching $40 an Hour While You Are Still Asking If We Should Be Leveraging This
Wix published a guide on making money with AI covering everything from AI-powered translation businesses pulling more than $25 per hour to freelance coding work fetching over $40 per hour. The piece also points to self-publishing books on Amazon using AI tools and creating YouTube content with AI assistance. The range runs from a few hundred dollars in side income to six-figure AI businesses depending on how deep you go.
Just Read a LinkedIn Post About Indian SMBs AI-Synergizing Their Ads and Honestly? We're Already Behind.
Some study out of India found that 92% of small businesses surveyed said AI would be critical to their future competitiveness. AI is apparently lowering the cost and effort of experimenting with new markets and products for these companies. But here's the part nobody on my team flagged for me: business owners are still the most common final decision-makers, and fully automated advertising decisions without human review remain rare. So the machines aren't running the show yet, which is honestly disappointing but probably means we can still take credit for everything.
Heard a Podcast at the Airport Lounge: 15 Million Data Points Say Your SEO Hacks Are Already Dead.
Ahrefs analyzed 15 million data points and found that AI search rewards the boring stuff: real rankings, genuine mentions, topically built-out content, and brands people actually talk about. One myth they busted was that publishing a 'best X' list featuring your own brand will trick AI into recommending you. Glen Allsopp ran 750 ChatGPT prompts and found that 'best X' blog posts made up 43.8% of all page types cited, meaning those lists dominate AI responses but self-serving ones don't fool the algorithm. AI search is apparently allergic to hacks, which is the exact opposite of what my SEO consultant promised me last quarter.
Just Heard a LinkedIn Whisper About the Matrix Platform and Honestly? Oak House Is Already Synergizing Skin Renewal in Des Moines.
Oak House Med Spa and Wellness Center in Des Moines rolled out the Matrix Skin Renewal Platform from Candela, a global medical aesthetic device company. The spa specifically calls out the eye area as a top patient concern that is hard to treat without surgery, positioning Matrix as their non-surgical answer. Candela's portfolio already spans hair removal, wrinkle reduction, tattoo removal, facial resurfacing, and scar treatment, so this is a device company with serious distribution muscle behind a boutique med spa.