Notes from the workshop.
Product updates, engineering notes, and thinking on privacy-first AI tooling.
What is a token? The thing your AI actually reads, and bills you for
Why does AI say “strawberry” has two r’s? It can’t see letters, only tokens. The one unit behind its mistakes and your bill.
What is an AI workflow? (And when chat isn’t enough)
Six steps, four copy-pastes, two tabs. Then you do it all again next week. That’s not a conversation. It’s a workflow you haven’t built yet.
What is multimodal AI?
You used it this week: pointing a camera, asking out loud, hearing a reply. One model, many senses. Here's what the term actually means.
AI for the marketing team of one
You're the writer, designer, editor, and analyst. AI can't make you five people, but it can give one person the reach of an agency.
AI for ecommerce product listings: copy, photos, alt text, A+
A listing isn't a paragraph: it's a six-part conversion system. AI lifts five of them. The sixth gets your account suspended.
AI for game developers: art, voice, SFX, and dialogue
A folder of gray capsules and checkerboard textures stands between you and a playable build. Here's the AI asset team that clears it.
The only AI benchmark that matters has 20 questions, and you write it
The model that tops every leaderboard can finish last on your work. The fix takes one afternoon and twenty examples you already have.
What one hour of serious AI use actually costs
I priced a real mixed hour of AI (chat, images, video, voice) across the providers people use. The total was $13.57, and 88% of it was one clip.
AI for newsletter writers: everything but the sentences
Your subscribers bought a person, not a content feed. Four pillars where AI earns its keep, and the one block of the week it never gets near.
The best AI for short-form video ads (TikTok, Reels, Shorts)
The prettiest video model loses the only test that matters: can it ship eight vertical, captioned hooks before lunch? Five picks, ranked.
The best AI voice for audiobook narration (2026)
The demo sells you the voice; the eighty-thousandth word tells you if you bought the right one. Stamina, license, and the store that bans it.
The best AI image generator for product photography (2026)
Most AI image models are great at art and terrible at keeping your actual product. Five that aren't, ranked on fidelity over beauty.
Pro product photos from a phone (no studio)
A phone, a kitchen window, four AI tools, sixty-three cents in API credits. Forty-two minutes to a six-shot product gallery.
How to make a 30-second AI video ad, end-to-end
Forty-six minutes. Four dollars and fifty-eight cents. Every prompt, every tool, every cost: one vertical ad on a Sunday afternoon.
The best on-device AI apps for Mac (2026)
Your M-series Mac runs AI that was frontier-class two years ago. Eight jobs, eight picks, and the four categories nobody has solved yet.