City of Seattle’s AI Plan: A Blueprint for AI Experiments

By - March 1, 2026 Leave your thoughts

In my experience, there are many small business owners that think they need a Silicon Valley budget to see real-world gains from artificial intelligence. Usually, they look at me with a healthy dose of Northwest skepticism when I tell them otherwise. But lately, I’ve been pointing them toward an unlikely laboratory of innovation: Seattle City Hall.

In late 2025, Mayor Bruce Harrell launched the City of Seattle 2025-2026 AI Plan, a 26-page framework that moved the city from “thinking about AI” to running 40+ active experiments. For a small business owner, this plan isn’t just government paperwork; it’s a fine example of how to test-drive AI without crashing the car.

Continue reading

He Built an AI Agent to Do His Job — and the Results Were Complicated

By - February 28, 2026 Leave your thoughts
In a recent first-person experiment for Fast Company, a writer set out to test a provocative idea: what if an autonomous AI agent could do his job for him? Not just assist. Not just draft. Actually take over meaningful portions of the workflow. To run the test, Thomas Smith used OpenClaw, an open-source agent framework designed to connect large…

The $1,000 Lemonade Mistake: What a Viral AI Benchmark Teaches Small Biz About Common Sense

By - February 26, 2026 Leave your thoughts
We’ve all seen the hyped-up LinkedIn posts: “I told ChatGPT to start a business with $100 and it’s already making $10k a month!” As something of an AI thinker, I’m usually the one in the room squinting at those claims. In the real world—the world of Ballard bakeries and Capitol Hill boutiques—business isn’t just about catchy ta…

If I Were Designing an AI Assistant for a Law Firm Today, Here’s What I’d Build

By - February 5, 2026 Leave your thoughts
AI is being marketed to law firms as either transformative or dangerous. Depending on the headline, it will replace associates or expose firms to malpractice risk. I find both narratives unhelpful. If I were designing an AI assistant for a small, local law firm, perhaps a 3–10 attorney practice handling personal injury or family law, I wouldn…

Can AI Reduce Administrative Overhead by 40%? Modeling the Math for a Solo Founder

By - January 26, 2026 Leave your thoughts
1. The Baseline: Where the Time Actually Goes AI’s promise is leverage. For large companies, that often means reducing headcount or headcount growth. For a solo founder, it means something much simpler and more urgent: reclaiming time. This question is not abstract for me. As I build Seattle App Studio, developing a portfolio of small bus…