We are avoiding the big macro headlines this week—regulatory wars, energy crises, or which tech giant wins the market share battle. View this email in your browser

The Weekly AI Briefing

🧑‍🏫 Latest AI thoughts, tools, and news from unburdn It’s time for 2026 predictions! We are avoiding the big macro headlines… regulatory wars, energy crises, or which tech giant wins the market share battle. Instead, we are looking under the hood at the inner workings of your company. Disclaimer: These are just guesses. No way will our hit rate be 100%. This year is going to be violent for the unprepared. Here are our specific predictions for how AI changes the corporate landscape in 2026: The "Great Divide" Widens: The gap between the AI Haves and the AI Have-Nots is no longer a crack; it’s a canyon. Organizations that have been patiently following the "crawl, walk, run" method are starting to stack material gains. Everyone else is staring at a vertical learning curve. If you haven't started, catching up will feel impossible. Small Beats Big: Agility is the new currency. SMBs are going to run circles around large enterprises this year. Why? Because giants are buried under mountains of tech and operational debt. They can’t turn the ship. Meanwhile, nimble organizations are stripping away menial work and punching way above their weight class. The Humbling of Knowledge Work: Industries that thought they had a moat are in for a wakeup call. Complex knowledge work that used to require decades of experience can now be done by a sharp junior staffer with the right AI stack. Incumbents will be dethroned by lean teams producing better returns with a fraction of the overhead. The "AI Washing" Continues: Big software companies and consulting firms will continue to peddle BS. They are too saddled by their own bloat to innovate, so they will keep sprinkling "AI" on their old products and calling it a revolution. Don't fall for it. Privacy Becomes the Product: The #1 blocker for AI adoption has been fear of data leaks. Expect the big players (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic) to release obvious, heavy-duty security offerings. Data privacy won't just be a feature; it will be the main selling point to finally get corporate legal teams to say "yes." The Death of Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V: This is the year menial work truly dies. If your team is still manually copying text from one document to another or proofreading by eye, you are lighting money on fire. That work is gone. Maximum Confusion: Get ready for a firehose of new toys. The market will be flooded with tools, features, and SaaS updates. You will feel stressed that you aren't trying five new things a week. Ignore the noise. Most of it is distraction. Rise of the Shadow Workforce: Your smartest employees are already automating their jobs. They aren't telling you because leadership doesn't understand it (or fears it). So, they are going dark—doing their job in 2 hours and taking the rest of the day back. Some are even working multiple jobs. The "Slop" Revolt: People are tired of mediocre AI content. The novelty of Sora videos and Suno songs is wearing off. We are going to hear a lot more conversation about "Human-Created" vs. "AI-Created." If it feels like slop, your customers will tune it out. The Strategy Wake-Up Call: Companies will finally realize that AI isn't just software you install; it's a complete operational overhaul requiring real capital and strategy. Many will spend 2026 wasting money, only to scratch their heads in December wondering why nothing changed. PS: Keep reading for hot-takes on headlines, AI tools, and a personal story + pic

📰 AI News Worth Knowing

💰 The CFO has taken over. 62% of CFOs now rank AI as their top priority, bypassing the CTO. This means AI projects in 2026 will be judged on cash flow, not capability. Stop pitching "innovation" to your board; pitch "margin expansion" if you want your budget approved. Read Here 🚨 Satya is sweating. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is panicking, and that’s a signal. He is pushing for "Founder Mode" urgency because Google and OpenAI are eating Microsoft's lunch on model performance. Audit your Microsoft dependency this quarter. Their roadmap is about to get chaotic. Read Here

🛠️ AI Tools You Need to Try

🧱 Back to Basics: Stop chasing the shiny new tools. If you aren't running circles around your industry yet, you skipped a step. I’m linking back to my foundational stack. Master these simple tools before you try anything else. Read Here[Subscribe

From the Field: 🏔️ Clarity is King

I’m getting a little vulnerable here, but I became sober in June of 2024. As everyone sets their New Year's resolutions, I figured this was the right time to share. I'm not here to preach sobriety—that's a personal call. But for me, the difference is night and day. No more high highs and low lows. No more hangovers. My brain finally feels like it's firing on all cylinders, which has been critical for building Unburdn and strapping myself to this rocket ship. If this is something you are exploring, Quit Drinking Without Willpower by Allen Carr and This Naked Mind by Annie Grace were game-changers for me. Here's to a clear 2026. Thanks for reading. 🙏 Copyright (C) 2025 AI for the Rest of Us LLC dba Unburdn. All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe