The Local AI Option
Local LLMs like Mistral Medium 3.5 have crossed the line from research project to real architectural option. Here's who should be looking at on-prem AI.
Foto Friday – Grand Canyon Sunset
Sunset over the Grand Canyon from my first photography workshop, 2019. Went out solo the night before the conference and the sky put on a show.
Why AI Sales Agents Convert 3x Worse Than Websites
Walmart's ChatGPT checkout converted at one-third the rate of its regular website. The failure was a mismatch between what the agent was optimized for and what customers need at the moment of purchase.
Foto Friday – Arches National Park
Long exposure at Arches National Park as the park empties out at sunset — car light trails, stars coming in, and the canyon going quiet.
The 43-Point Gap
Developers using AI thought they were 20% faster. A controlled trial found they were 19% slower. That 43-point gap is a governance problem most frameworks don't address.
Foto Friday – Corona Arch
Corona Arch sits just outside Moab's national parks — a mile-and-a-half hike through slickrock, a ladder bolted to the canyon wall, and a smoky evening that turned into a better shot than planned.
The Formation Problem
Companies stopped replacing junior developers. That quiet shift is eroding the apprenticeship pipeline that produces senior engineers capable of supervising AI.
Foto Friday – Boot Arch Under the Milky Way
Boot Arch in Alabama Hills, California. A Milky Way shot from a couple years ago that sat on my hard drive until I figured out what was wrong with the foreground.
The Knowledge Problem
80% of AI projects fail — twice the rate of conventional IT projects. The reason is a knowledge extraction problem that starts before any technology gets built.
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