Hi there,
Five weeks ago we said the way to start with AI is one job, done well.
Since then a frontier model was switched off by a government order then switched back on. KPMG published a report riddled with invented facts. Microsoft admitted almost nobody uses the Copilot it installed on 450 million desks. Three more major models launched, two of them this week.
Through all of it the advice in this newsletter never changed once. So today, the whole thing on one page.
This week in AI
The short version. Anthropic released Claude Opus 5 this week at half the price of the model it replaces. Google shipped a faster version of Gemini. Moonshot put out the largest open-weight model anyone has released, free for anyone to download.
What that means for you is less than the headlines suggest. The tools keep getting better and cheaper whether you pay attention or not. That part is the vendors’ job. Yours is the habit. The habit hasn’t moved in five weeks, which brings us to the page.
The practical bit
The whole system, on one page.
Five weeks, five ideas. Here they are in the order you’d actually run them, not the order we published them. If you do nothing else with this newsletter, do these.
- Find what you already own. Before you buy a single new subscription, list what you pay for each month. Look for the AI button in each one. Most businesses own more than they think.
- Pick one job worth doing. Boring, weekly, low-risk. The status update, the meeting notes, the email you send fifty times a month. One job, not a project.
- Brief it like a person. Tell it who to be, what you need, who it’s for, what good looks like. That’s the difference between a search box query and briefing a sharp new starter.
- Check it before it ships. The more confident the answer sounds, the harder you look. Names, numbers, dates, quotes, sources. Nothing leaves the building unread.
- Write three lines for your team. What’s fine. What needs a second pair of eyes. What never goes near a public model. Then ask them what they’re already using, as an amnesty rather than an audit.
Find, pick, brief, check, share. That’s the whole thing. None of it is clever. All of it works. Most businesses skip straight past it and go shopping for tools instead.
Free resources
Prompting 101
Step three is the one that makes the other four work. Brief it well and everything downstream gets better. This free course turns that habit into a proper skill in seven short modules, with real business examples plus one thing to try after every lesson.
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What’s on
The sessions below ran in July 2026. For what is coming up, see upcoming events.
At 13.00, then one for the diary.
Claude Essentials
28 July · Online · 13.00 to 14.00
The month closes with Claude, the other tool we run this business on. What it’s genuinely good at, where it differs from the assistant already built into your existing tools, plus the first jobs worth handing it. One hour, no technical background needed.
Free, live, no jargon
The AI Foundry Live
Thursday 17 September · Kindling, MediaWorks, White City · 13.30 to 16.30
Our quarterly get-together is back in September. Two short talks from guest speakers, then time to compare notes with other business owners over an afternoon coffee. Speakers to be announced. Worth putting in the diary now.
Free, in person
That’s the last of the summer sessions. It’s holiday season in the UK and we’re all taking a proper break through August, so the next date in the diary is 17 September. Have a good one.
The news will keep changing. The playbook won’t.
Five weeks of headlines. Models pulled then restored, a consultancy caught publishing invented facts, a giant admitting almost nobody uses what it built, three more launches. Not one of those weeks changed what you should do on Monday morning. That’s the part worth holding on to. The tools will keep moving. Find, pick, brief, check, share stays exactly where it is.
Next week, the question I get asked in every room. Which tool should I actually use?
Hit reply and tell me which of the five you’ve actually done. I read every reply.
Know someone still shopping for tools instead of starting? Forward this on.
Understand first. Then act.
Richard