https://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mr7ekp3u4c2cNine hours a week. That's what your best people are saving with AI, and your firm is seeing almost none of it show up anywhere that matters. I mapped exactly where those gains disappear, and what the top 6 percent did to keep them: full piece below. https://intelligencebyintent.com/insights/your-ai-saves-nine-hours-a-week-your-firm-sees-none-of-it22 Jul 2026 03:21 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mr7ekp3u4c2chttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mqoa4h426c2cThe people going hardest at AI are the worst at being present. That's my crowd, that's me. There is no after, and the frontier doesn't pull over. https://intelligencebyintent.com/insights/the-music-started-and-everything-else-went-quiet15 Jul 2026 07:46 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqoa4h426c2chttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mpvsr2qyuc2rEveryone thinks AI is cutting jobs. Follow the money and the opposite shows up: the heaviest AI spenders got more productive, grew, and then hired. Here's the data, and what the winners did differently. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/the-heaviest-ai-spenders-are-hiring05 Jul 2026 14:43 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpvsr2qyuc2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mpfh5c535k27Everyone's asking which AI is smartest. Wrong question. The one that matters: where should the work happen, and who checks it? https://www.smithstephen.com/p/the-smartest-model-is-the-wrong-question29 Jun 2026 02:32 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpfh5c535k27https://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mp7fcsbagk2qI asked a room of family lawyers to guess how much of the global AI hallucination problem was theirs. The lowest guess was 20 percent; the real number is 6. Most of those cases were filed by parents fighting custody alone with a free chatbot, and the new piece is about where that leads. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/the-ai-hallucination-problem-isnt26 Jun 2026 16:44 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mp7fcsbagk2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3moz4t53fcc2sRight now someone at your firm is pasting client facts into a free chatbot to save an hour. California's proposed AI rules might call that revealing confidential information. Do you know which tools your people are using? https://www.smithstephen.com/p/californias-new-ai-rules-dont-create24 Jun 2026 04:56 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3moz4t53fcc2shttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mojjoaqtgs2rYour firm said no to ChatGPT and yes to Microsoft Copilot. Copilot runs the same OpenAI and Anthropic models, just a different contract. I read all three terms side by side, and the real risk isn't the vendor. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/microsoft-copilot-isnt-safer-than18 Jun 2026 00:03 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mojjoaqtgs2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3moewkq4ric26A model showed up that stopped feeling like a smart associate and started feeling like a senior thinking partner. It lasted three days. The capability jump is real, the governance burden is real, and the firms that learn to hold both will be ready for what comes next. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/the-best-legal-ai-most-lawyers-will16 Jun 2026 04:10 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3moewkq4ric26https://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mmxbtjjlnk2sYou can't hand a model thousands of documents if it might tell you it read them all when it skimmed half. That's been the whole problem with AI on real matters. Opus 4.8 didn't fix it, but it moved in the right direction, and I tested it on a live 3,000-document matter the day it launched. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/the-best-thing-about-the-new-claude29 May 2026 00:30 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmxbtjjlnk2shttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mmtweqnwwc2hThe bar moved while everyone was arguing about whether to use AI. The attorneys closing the gap between using it and using it well are writing the rules the rest of the profession gets measured by https://www.smithstephen.com/p/ai-doesnt-have-a-bar-number-you-do27 May 2026 16:27 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmtweqnwwc2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mmr6j2myoc22AI is horsepower. RevOps is the chassis, the brakes, the steering. Most companies are bolting 700 horsepower onto a chassis that was never built for it, and calling it strategy. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/your-ai-strategy-is-just-your-dysfunction26 May 2026 14:14 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmr6j2myoc22https://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mmp53gqpjc2hHis IT director told him ChatGPT memory was off. He showed me the setting. He felt fine. Then the model summarized a contract by referencing another client. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/he-turned-off-chatgpts-memory-it25 May 2026 18:43 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmp53gqpjc2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mmhqwepj7k2wAndrej Karpathy. Anthropic. He could have gone anywhere. He picked the lab that's profitable, compute-rich, and winning the rooms that pay. That's the whole story this week. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/karpathy-just-picked-anthropic-thats22 May 2026 20:17 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmhqwepj7k2whttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mmaxt5m2yk2mForget faster models. Google shipped a worker. Spark runs on its own VM, 24/7, with your laptop closed. The chatbot phase is over. I/O 2026 made it official. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/google-just-skipped-the-chatbot-era20 May 2026 03:32 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmaxt5m2yk2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mlzkk3xkis2vI watched a video this weekend on YouTube and I cannot stop thinking about it. "Humans were the horses." Ken Griffin opened his Stanford answer on AI with that line, quoting Niall Ferguson. The 19 minutes that followed got more uncomfortable, not less. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/humans-were-the-horses-ken-griffin17 May 2026 04:46 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlzkk3xkis2vhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mlahtmaxtk2mA general counsel emailed me last week: "Why are we suddenly getting bad answers from Claude?" They weren't. They were getting entry-level answers from a model they didn't pick, because the app had quietly reset their default. The labs need to fix this. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/you-picked-the-premium-ai-the-app07 May 2026 05:21 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlahtmaxtk2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3ml3fl6xaqc26Most firms plan AI training as if every role moves at the same speed. The reality: 18 months for assistants, 24 for paralegals, 36 for lawyers. Get that spread wrong and you mis-staff every part of the firm at once. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/your-assistant-has-18-months-your05 May 2026 04:57 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml3fl6xaqc26https://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mkjfo543is2cI asked Claude to build one PowerPoint template from a design spec it created. It failed three times. Codex did it in one shot, and that single test reshaped how I think about every AI tool decision I make. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/i-tried-to-build-one-powerpoint-template28 Apr 2026 01:11 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkjfo543is2chttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3miintt2m5227Norway's $2.2 trillion fund put their AI playbook on camera. What they showed first wasn't the technology. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/a-22-trillion-fund-showed-exactly02 Apr 2026 07:14 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3miintt2m5227https://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mhnhscls222lMy old AI fact-checking approach still works fine. But the models can handle multi-step verification, real-time search, and claim-level scoring now. So I rebuilt from scratch to match. Sharing the full code. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/i-rebuilt-my-fact-checking-system22 Mar 2026 11:44 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhnhscls222lhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mhfornmbwk2cPick "Pro" on ChatGPT and "Pro" on Gemini. You just selected two fundamentally different tools without knowing it. Here's the decoder nobody published. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/same-menu-same-words-completely-different19 Mar 2026 09:27 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhfornmbwk2chttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mh6sxyp63223Zero data retention feels like the responsible call for any firm handling privileged information. But the tradeoffs in auditability, cost, and compliance are real, and most firms made this decision without seeing the full picture. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/zero-data-retention-is-the-wrong16 Mar 2026 15:54 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mh6sxyp63223https://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mh4ctfzwfk2jThe hardest part of AI for law firm leaders isn't the technology. It's knowing which headlines are worth their time. This week I picked five. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/last-week-had-ten-ai-stories-only15 Mar 2026 16:00 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mh4ctfzwfk2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mgwzqzyrd22yMost law firms are spending their AI budget on drafting tools while the real bottleneck sits untouched. I spent an afternoon building interactive timelines, estate flowcharts, and damages models in Claude’s new visual feature. Here’s what firm leaders should pay attention to. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/legal-ai-was-missing-the-one-thing13 Mar 2026 13:34 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgwzqzyrd22yhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mgj2pbrcn22fA managing partner texted me at 12PM on this past Thursday asking if his firm needed to rethink everything after OpenAI's latest release (5.4). The answer took me two days of testing to give honestly. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/chatgpt-54-is-good-thats-not-the08 Mar 2026 00:14 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgj2pbrcn22fhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mg22fe4ye22jYour attorneys are uploading client documents to AI tools on personal accounts right now. You just don't know about it yet. That's the real AI risk for law firms, and it's more urgent than picking the right platform. I finally recommend an LLM for law firms. Link in comments.02 Mar 2026 00:58 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mg22fe4ye22jhttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mfrbxl6to22a“Ghost GDP” is the catchiest bad-economics concept I’ve seen in years. Machines don’t own themselves. The $150K you save replacing an analyst doesn’t vanish. It goes somewhere. Where it goes is a policy question, not an identity crisis. https://www.smithstephen.com/p/a-7000-word-ai-crisis-memo-moved26 Feb 2026 13:20 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfrbxl6to22ahttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mfmfe3wy3s2p"Which AI should I use?" is the wrong question. After several years of daily testing across legal work, the answer is a 3-question routing habit, not a single platform pick. https://www.intelligencebyintent.com/insights/there-is-no-best-ai-theres-only-the-right-one-for-the-job24 Feb 2026 14:37 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfmfe3wy3s2phttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mfihcqtu3k2cGemini 3.1 Pro doubled its reasoning score in 90 days and took the #1 spot at $2/M tokens. But it still can't write like Claude. Here's how to think about it.
https://www.intelligencebyintent.com/insights/google-just-flipped-the-ai-leaderboard-in-90-days23 Feb 2026 01:01 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfihcqtu3k2chttps://bsky.app/profile/smithstephen.bsky.social/post/3mells47buk2aBaker McKenzie cut 700 jobs citing AI. KPMG used AI to negotiate a fee discount from its own auditor. Two stories, same week, same signal: the billable hour’s defense just ran out of time. https://www.intelligencebyintent.com/insights/kpmg-saved-dollar59k-the-precedent-will-cost-you-millions11 Feb 2026 13:34 +0000at://did:plc:mukdkma3ucjj5mcn4nbvm4vm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mells47buk2a