Practical AI. In plain English.
Research, frameworks and strategy from the team behind The Foundry Weekly. Written for business owners and leaders who want clarity, not hype.
Everyone’s Buying AI Agents. Almost Nobody’s Building Agency.
The tools are already good enough. What most businesses lack is a clear decision about who’s allowed to use AI, on what, and where the line sits.
Richard 9 June 2026 The EU AI Act’s Big Deadline Might Move to 2027. One Part Isn’t Moving.
Brussels has provisionally agreed to push the AI Act’s main high-risk deadline to December 2027. It isn’t law yet, and the AI literacy duty hasn’t moved.
Richard 9 June 2026 UK Businesses Using AI Are Saving Half a Day a Week. Most Still Have Not Started.
New research from OpenAI and Enterprise Nation finds UK businesses using AI save 5.2 hours a week per decision-maker, but a fifth of businesses still use no AI at all.
Richard 26 May 2026 Pick Your First Win: One Task, One Week, One Real Number
A three-step exercise to get your first measurable AI win this week. No strategy needed. Just one task you already do.
Richard 26 May 2026 The AI Disclosure Audit: 10 Minutes to Find Your Compliance Gaps
A ten-minute three-column exercise that shows where AI touches your customers and whether any of it is disclosed.
Richard 19 May 2026 The EU AI Act Transparency Rules Take Effect on 2 August. Most Businesses Have Not Started.
Article 50 of the EU AI Act becomes enforceable on 2 August 2026 and only 26% of European managers have started compliance work.
Richard 19 May 2026 AI Is Not One Thing. It's Five.
When a leader says 'we need to do more with AI' without saying which type of value they mean, the team makes its own guess. Speed, Quality, Capacity, Capability, Insight — which one are you trying to move?
Scott 13 May 2026 60% of UK Businesses Say Skills Are the Biggest Blocker to AI. They're Right.
The UK government's AI Adoption study found that 60% of businesses cite skills as their biggest blocker. Not budget. Not regulation. Skills. And 71% still have no clear use case.
Scott 13 May 2026 The Use Case Audit: 10 Minutes to Find Out Where Your AI Spend Is Actually Going
A ten-minute exercise that almost no business does and almost every business should. Two columns. What you are paying for, and what you are actually using it for.
Scott 13 May 2026 Microsoft 365 Copilot Hits 20 Million Users. What That Means for Your Business.
Paid Copilot users have crossed 20 million. Weekly usage is now on a par with Outlook. But the gap between paying for Copilot and getting value from it is training, not the licence.
Richard 6 May 2026 Your Team Is Already Using AI. You Just Don’t Know How.
The people who say their team is great at AI rarely know what they are doing with it. The ones who say they are rubbish usually have someone quietly doing excellent work.
Richard 6 May 2026 The Three-Check Habit: 30 Seconds That Make AI Output Yours
Before you send an AI-generated email or paste a Copilot summary into a meeting note, run it past three questions. Thirty seconds. Every time.
Richard 6 May 2026 The Anchor Habit: One Prompt Fix That Makes Copilot Actually Useful
Most Copilot prompts fail because they are too vague. Adding one anchor — a name, project or keyword — tells Copilot where to look and dramatically improves the output.
Richard 29 April 2026 Why the Smartest AI Move This Year Is Writing One Page
The businesses that will look smart about AI in twelve months are not the ones with the best tools. They are the ones who wrote a one-page strategy this year.
Richard 29 April 2026 Most UK Businesses Use AI. Almost None Have Changed How Work Gets Done.
Over half of UK businesses now use AI, yet 95% report no workforce change. The BCC and Stanford data tell the same story: adoption without training is just licensing by another name.
Richard 29 April 2026 Get insights like these every Tuesday.
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