NotesAPRIL 2026

Notes on AI designed for small business.

Short, honest pieces on AI for small businesses. What to try, what to skip, and how to tell the difference.

A child in a striped t-shirt leaning into a coin-operated seaside telescope, looking carefully through the eyepiece.

Agents · Case studies · Oversight

The reviewer in the room

A human looked at what the agent produced and said no. That's not a training-wheels phase. It's how the agent learns what accurate means here.

ByJames Dodd16 April 20264 min read

Also in this issue

Case studies · Cost
Your AI bill isn't the real bill
When an AI silently starts missing things, the invoice is the last place you'll notice. The cost lands somewhere else.
James Dodd14 Apr 20262 min read
Cost · Guides
Not every task needs the biggest model
Every time a new frontier model lands, someone proposes plumbing it everywhere. The right answer isn't a smaller model. It's a test.
James Dodd11 Apr 20264 min read
Fieldnotes · Framing
Explain it with something they know
Put a new idea next to a familiar one and the decision gets easier. Most of the work of a good briefing is choosing the thing on the other side of the comparison.
James Dodd8 Apr 20263 min read

From the archive

Case studies · Framing
Worth looking again
James Dodd4 Apr 20263 min
Guides · Oversight
The three buckets of AI exposure
James Dodd30 Mar 20263 min
Case studies · Reliability
Two out of three is bad
James Dodd24 Mar 20264 min
Agents · Case studies
We built one AI to commit fraud and another to stop it
James Dodd17 Mar 20267 min
Case studies · Oversight
Free is never quite free
James Dodd9 Mar 20263 min
Guides · Restraint
Five ways to use less AI
James Dodd28 Feb 20263 min