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David's Saturday AI Thoughts

David's Saturday AI Thoughts

By: David Boyle
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Each Saturday, David Boyle reflects on what feels important in the world of AI. Not the breathless hype or the doom. The practical, analytical perspective: what happened this week, what it means for people who use language models in their work, and what to try next. David is Director of Audience Strategies and co-founder of Steadman. He advises organisations from L.E.K. Consulting to the BBC on AI adoption. This podcast is a spoken-word version of his Saturday AI Thoughts newsletter, with different voices for each section.© 2026 Steadman AI
Episodes
  • A thousand small bargains

    A thousand small bargains
    Jun 27 2026
    David sent an important email last week that a machine wrote, read it, changed nothing, and sent it — one of three handovers that look, on their face, like exactly the surrenders the worriers warn about. None of them were. Taking Rahim Hirji's new book SuperSkills as a generous foil, he argues most AI handovers are good bargains, not a thousand small surrenders dressed as convenience: the machine takes the middle while the parts that decide the outcome climb a level to you — what to ask, whether it's good enough, whether you'll own it. The floor isn't to check every word but to own it to your own standard, and to save your deepest effort for the few tasks where being great beats being good. Never be careless, always be good, sometimes be great. Plus three things worth knowing, three things to try, and what readers said.
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    14 mins
  • Average by default

    Average by default
    Jun 20 2026
    Almost nobody who sets up their AI ever tells it who they are. Not just the job title, but how they think, what they notice, how they decide. David Boyle argues that the empty personalisation box is the most useful question the whole product asks, because if you don't tell the model what makes your judgement specific, it has one assumption left: you're average. He builds the case on fresh research showing leading models land on the same argument while people diverge, and on his own work writing down an identity layer a CV can't hold. The edge is the judgement and taste you bring, and it travels with you between systems. Plus three things worth knowing, three things to try, and what readers said about spending, budgets and trust.
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    12 mins
  • Ride the bike

    Ride the bike
    Jun 13 2026
    Anthropic's newest model costs exactly double its predecessor, one GitHub Copilot bill jumped from a flat $50 a month towards $3,000, and suddenly the invoice, not the model, is the story. David argues most organisations manage these bills exactly backwards: they celebrate the biggest token burners or cap everyone, and both approaches manage the number instead of the judgement. His maths says the gap between the cheapest sensible model and the dearest buys about 40 seconds of a manager's day. What he would do instead: a floor of five prompts a day for everyone, then a delegation budget run on trust, because a price with a budget behind it sharpens judgement while a price with a cap replaces it. Eddy Merckx supplies the moral: ride the bike. Plus three things worth knowing, three things to try, and what readers said about graduate hiring.
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    13 mins
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