March 2026 · 794 words
The eraof builders.
Ongoing thinking · Vol. I
The
thinking.
Adapting to AI isn’t a one-time decision. It’s an ongoing process of understanding change, testing ideas, and refining how your business operates. Here’s what we’re noticing.
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Featured · This month’s most-read
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The archive.
15 essayssince 2023
Sorted newest first
Sorted newest first
Retail
How I stoppedusing Google.
Why soon opening a browser will be something different — and what it means for retailers.
A week without Google. What replaced it, what didn’t, and what it means for retailers whose discovery funnels still start at a search bar.
Retail
Death bya thousand stores.
Why reinventing the future matters more than revisiting the past.
Retailers still expanding their physical footprint while the ground shifts underneath them. A field report on the ones that see it, and the ones that don’t.
AI
Traditional searchis dead.
The future of finding your business is AI.
The shape of the new discovery layer — what it rewards, what it ignores, and how to be on the right side of it before everyone else catches up.
Leadership
Trust in the ageof agentic AI.
Leadership: trust in the age of agentic AI.
When systems start making decisions on your behalf, the question shifts from “what can AI do?” to “who do you trust with the keys?”
AI
Will AI chooseyour brand?
Will AI choose your brand?
Brand discovery is being delegated to systems. What makes a brand visible — and preferable — in an interface that already knows what you want.
Product
Moto ManualGPT.
Building a custom GPT — Moto Manual Assistant.
How we turned a shelf of workshop manuals into a conversational assistant for the country’s best Indian Motorcycle workshop.
Case study
APL PerformanceBikes.
APL Performance Bikes: a digital transformation success story.
Behind the scenes on a rebuild that turned a workshop-first business into a modern e-commerce operation — without losing what made them good.
Retail
TEMU &gamification.
Deepening the digital retail experience: TEMU and gamification.
Part one of a longer look at what the new generation of e-commerce players actually get right — and what Western retail keeps missing.
Business
HubSpotCRM.
How HubSpot CRM revolutionised my client relationships.
Record traffic, record engagement, and a small company that finally stopped dropping balls. Personal lessons on picking a CRM that actually fits.
Case study
Chaosinto calm.
Transforming chaos into calm: a Digital Discovery success story.
A client came to us mid-collapse. Six months later, the business ran itself. What we changed, in what order, and what we’d do differently.
Podcast
First monthreflections.
Reflecting on my initial month with Digital Discovery Podcast.
What I learned launching a podcast from zero — the bits that were harder than expected, and the bits that surprised me on the way up.
Podcast
Join theconversation.
Join the conversation on Digital Discovery Podcast.
An open invite. What the show is really about, who should be on it, and how to get involved if you’ve got a perspective that deserves hearing.
Foundations
Desireddigital paths.
Desired digital paths.
What good digital transformation actually looks like from a customer’s point of view — and why the paths most businesses design aren’t the ones people walk.
Foundations
Digital marketingbasics.
Digital marketing basics — customer acquisition.
The fundamentals people skip because they’re busy chasing tactics. A working checklist for anyone who’s still building the flywheel.
Foundations
Websitebasics.
Website basics.
What a website is actually for in 2026, and the ten questions to ask before you brief anyone to build you one.