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I help business users succeed with AI. I share my knowledge via The Artificially Intelligent Enterprise newsletter.

Mark R. Hinkle is an accomplished executive in high-growth technology companies, specializing in the strategic integration of artificial intelligence to enhance enterprise infrastructure and productivity. Committed to continuous learning, Mark updates his expertise to remain at the forefront of technological advancements.

Mark combines deep technical knowledge with business acumen, thriving in diverse market conditions—from startups to established companies facing competitive pressures. He is recognized for his strategic insights that navigate complex challenges and capitalize on opportunities in the tech landscape.

Career Highlights:

- Capital Strategy: Raised over $8 million in seed capital from entities including Index Ventures and Cisco.
- Operational Leadership: Managed a 2500-person support center for MindSpring/Earthlink, leading to top customer satisfaction rankings from J.D. Power and Associates and awards from PC Magazine and PC World for outstanding technical support.
- Industry Recognition: Achieved a Gartner Cool Vendor title in Cloud Computing.
- Thought Leadership: Authored content with over 10 million views in publications like Wired and The New Stack.
- Community Engagement: Leads the RDU Meetup Group, fostering a network of over 1000 business users in North Carolina.

Additional Contributions:

- Publishing and Media: Publishes The Artificially Intelligent Enterprise, focusing on Generative AI for business users. Regular guest on The TechStrong Gang and contributor at The New Stack.
- AI Strategy: Applies his expertise in emerging technologies to drive AI integration within enterprises, enhancing operational agility and decision-making.

Mark's blend of vision and technical expertise makes him a valuable asset for organizations leveraging emerging technologies to improve productivity and competitive edge.

Mark Hinkle

We just announced the speakers for Round 1 of All Things AI 2026.
 
Truist. Amazon Web Services (AWS). Mistral AI. Intuit. Meta . Netflix.
And we are just getting  started.

That's not a wishlist. That's who's coming to Durham on March 23-24.
 
BUT here's what I'm most proud of:
 
This event exists because of what happens on the other 363 days.
 
Weekly Lunch & Learns.  Monthly meetups.  Free newsletters.  A community of 3,800+ practitioners who actually show up.
 
The conference funds all of it.
 
THEREFORE, if you've been learning with us online, this is your chance to meet the people behind the webinar squares.
 
Day 1: Hands-on workshops (AI for Business, DevOps, and Agents) 
Day 2: Keynotes, lightning talks, and 30-minute sessions packed with takeaways
 
Schedule is live.  Seats are going fast. We want to see you there!

I am fanatical about upskilling people to use AI. I publish newsletters, and podcasts @ TheAIE.net. I organize AI events @ All Things AI. I love dogs and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  🐶🥋

Open article: 2026 All Things AI Speakers Announced! by news.allthingsai.org

Don't miss out on the biggest and best AI learning event in Durham, NC 23-24

Our mission at All Things AI is to build AI fluency in North Carolina. Today I was researching where we stand today for our upcoming March conference in Durham. 

On what the NC governor Josh Stein did to establish an NC AI initiative with Executive Order No. 24. which established the following:

↳ North Carolina AI Leadership Council 
↳ North Carolina AI Accelerator 
↳ Agency AI Oversight Teams
↳ Statewide AI Literacy and Fraud Prevention Training Program 

Here is who is on the NC AI Leadership Council. If you are interested in AI and how it will affect the future, here are the folks to follow. 

 1. Sen. Todd Johnson, Senate, District 35, Senate Majority Whip
 2. Sen. DeAndrea Salvador, N.C. Senate, District 39
 3. Rep. Zack Hawkins, N.C. HoR, District 31
 4. Rep. Jake Johnson, N.C. HoR, District 113, House Deputy Majority Whip
 5. Dr. David Yokum, J.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientist, N.C. Office of State Budget and Management
 6. Mary Penny Kelley , Chief of Staff, N.C. Office of State Human Resources
 7. Kunal Choksi , Senior Deputy Attorney General, Consumer Protection Director at N.C. Department of Justice
 8. Vera Cubero , N.C. Emerging Technologies Consultant, N.C. Department of Public Instruction
 9. Bryan Harris, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer at SAS
10. Phaedra Boinodiris, Global Leader of Responsible AI at IBM Consulting
11. Marina Chase Carreker , Founder, Galleon Strategies
12. Igor J.ablokov, Chairman, Pryon Inc.
13. Dr. Thomas B. Reardon , former VP, Research at Meta; Partner, Lux Capital
14. The Hon. Tommy Sowers , Ph. D., Deputy Director, Duke Initiative for Science and Society
15. Dr. Andrea Crowley, Ph.D., Executive Director, N.C. Student Success Center, NC Community Colleges
16. Dr. Stan Ahalt , Ph.D., Dean, School of Data Science and Society, University of NC at Chapel Hill
17. Dr. Siobahn G. Ph.D., Founding Director, Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Research & Associate Professor of Information Systems, NC Central University
18. Markell Storay, CGCIO , Chief Information Officer and Director of Innovation & Technology, City of Charlotte
19. The Hon. Shinica Thomas Wake County Commissioner
20. Jennie Bowen , Workforce Development Director, Rivers East Workforce Development Board
21. Dr. Angel Hsu, Ph. D., Associate Professor of Public Policy, Director of the Data-Driven Lab, University of NC at Chapel Hill
22. Leslie Boney , Principal, BoneConnector.com; former Director, Institute for Emerging Issues, NC State University
23. Richard (Rick) Knafelz , Managing Director, Employee Experience Technology, Bank of America
24. Hannah Drummond, RN, Vice President, NC AFL-CIO
25. Todd Olson CEO & Co-founder, Pendo
26. Sarah Bacha , Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Strategy, Analytics, and AI, LendingTree
    
More updates and latest meeting notes are here -

https://lnkd.in/edNcb4bk

EO24-AdvancingTrustworthyArtificialIntelligence

An iPhone repair shop owner.  An edge AI company.  And a tech educator walks into an IMAX theater. It's no joke. 

But here's the punchline: Three very different paths to the same conclusion.

AI only succeeds with people.

Last night I emceed the All Things Open Conference Spacewalk event in Raleigh. 
Seven speakers.  All practitioners, not just presenters.

A few highlights:

Andre Lassiter ran an iPhone repair shop, swamped on weekends.  His solution?  He built AI voice-response systems that automated scheduling so his team could focus on fixing phones.  He scratched his own itch.  Now he provides those services for others.

Matt Hamann from LlamaFarm made the case for edge AI — deploying models on devices that don't need NVIDIA GPUs. Traffic signals don't need frontier models.  They need low-latency, specialized responses.

Eli Etherton delivered what I've been saying for two years: We'll need more tech workers, not fewer.  The caveat? Upskilling. He's doing exactly that through Silicon Dojo here in RTP.

We also heard from Nithya Ruff on AI governance (The Linux Foundation, AWS), Maria Lamardo (Github) on AI accessibility, and Budhaditya Bhattacharya (Tyk) on AI and DevRel.

And none of it happens without Todd Lewis.

Todd founded All Things Open 13 years ago.  He's been building this community long before AI was the hot topic.  Friend, brother, and my partner in All Things AI— he's proof that the best technology communities are built by people who show up, year after year.

Speaking of showing up — thank you to our VIP community members who keep coming back: Barry Shafer (he's the guy in the pictures who looks like we are shooting him into outer space with the rubber bands), Armon Rahgozar, PhD, MBA, Macie Fellows, George Dohanich, Melanie McLaughlin , Marcia Olson, Marc Sirkin, Danny Castro, Ricardo Govindasamy, and so many others.  You're the ones who make Raleigh-Durham's tech scene something special.

We're just getting started.  Can't wait for our big All Things AI event this spring in Durham, March 23rd and 24th. 

Seven speakers.  One organizer.  A room full of people who give a damn.
The technology is table stakes.  

The humans who understand it are the differentiator.

Stop calling yourself an AI expert. It's a trap.

Lots of people want to be called experts.
It's validating.
It's marketable.
It looks great in a LinkedIn headline.

BUT here's what nobody wants to admit:

Most "AI experts" have about 3 years of experience.
That's it.  Their expertise coincides almost perfectly with the release of ChatGPT.
I got started full-time in AI about 4 years ago, but dabbled in Machine Learning before that.
I am no expert.

Some people genuinely built this field.  ML researchers. The teams that created frontier models. Decades of work before the rest of us could spell "transformer."
They are experts.

Then there's the other kind of expert.  Those that may be ahead of the pack, but only by a few months. 

This isn't expertise.   They may be capable.   But I've rarely seen one that had an expert-level "resume".

You've heard about the 10,000-hour rule for mastery.   I've probably put that in over the last couple of years.   But I don't think that's mastery or expertise.  It may be an advantage relative to the rest of the population.  No doubt there.

But consider MrBeast.   It took him over 10 years to reach 50,000 subscribers.  
Ten years of grinding, experimenting, failing.  
Six years after that?   458 million subscribers.   That's one hell of a hockey stick.
He put in well over a decade to become the best in the world.
And he's still learning.

Author Robert Greene wrote an entire book called Mastery about this.  His argument: Darwin, Mozart, da Vinci—none of them were born geniuses.  They followed the same arc. Deep apprenticeship.   Finding mentors. Years of absorbing fundamentals before earning the right to break rules.

There are no shortcuts. The path is available to anyone willing to commit.
I've been in tech for 30+ years. I watched this same movie on Linux.   With cloud.  With mobile.  

The "experts" who planted flags early?  
Most disappeared when the ground shifted.
The ones who lasted?  They never stopped learning.
I don't want to be an AI expert.

I want to be a capable practitioner who stays curious and creates value for others.
Mastery isn't a title you claim.   It's a direction you travel.

Einstein said it best:

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."

I know it's cliché, but The Godfather is my favorite movie.
 
My friend Steve Rao likes to kid me about being "the Godfather of AI" in the Triangle. I only started that journey four years ago, but it's been one of the most rewarding things I've done.
 
BUT here's what I've noticed lately:
 
People are coming to me for help the way the Five Families came to Don Corleone. And I've realized something uncomfortable—I can't help everyone.
 
When I was younger, I was clueless. So many people helped me along the way.
 
I want to pay that back. But looking back, I realize those who helped me did so because I was 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱.
 
So here's what The Godfather taught me about networking, mentorship, and asking for help:
 
↳ Listen more than you talk. (Sonny showed his hand at the meeting. It almost got his father killed.)
 
↳ Don't demand a favor. (Bonasera learned this in the opening scene. "You don't even call me Godfather.")
 
↳ Come with respect, not entitlement. (The Don helped those who showed loyalty first—sometimes for years.)
 
↳ Keep your word. (Tom Hagen's value was simple: he did exactly what he said he'd do.)
 
↳ Don't take rejection personally. (It's not personal. It's strictly business. Sometimes it's just timing.)
 
↳ Know what to prioritize. (Leave the gun, take the cannoli. Clemenza understood what actually mattered.)
 
↳ Never take sides against the family. (Help the people who helped you. The network remembers.)
 
↳ Pay it forward. ("Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you for a service.")
 
↳ You become who you surround yourself with. (Michael said "That's my family, not me." Then he became the Don.)
 
The best way to get help? Make yourself easy to help.
 
And when you're in a position to give it, remember who made you easy to help in the first place.

Even if you aren't a fan of The Godfather, I think there's plenty of wisdom in the movies. (Except for the third chapter, that one was terrible.)

undefined undefined

Thanks for connecting on my post. I appreciate it. If there's anything I can do to help you or your organization better understand AI. Let me know. 

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Prompt of the week 

humansignal

splashwireinc

peripety-labs

the-artificially-intelligent-enterprise

triggermesh-serverless-management-platform

serverless-management-platform

I am fanatical about upskilling people to use AI. I publish newsletters, and podcasts @ TheAIE.net. I organize AI events @ All Things AI. I love dogs and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  🐶🥋

I've never had a cavity in my life.
But I broke a tooth once from clenching my jaw.

A few years ago, I was running a startup with no product-market fit and was subsidizing it with my savings.
The stress had to go somewhere.
Apparently, it went straight to my molars.

That dentist bill was my most expensive medical payout in years.
Not nearly as expensive as the startup, though.

I solved that problem by extricating myself from the situation.
Now I love what I do.
BUT here's the thing — frustrating requests still show up.

Today I got one that the sender probably thought was reasonable.
It wasn't.
And I doubt there's a response that leaves either of us feeling good.
I felt that familiar jaw tightness creeping back.

My current coping mechanism?
Scratching my Old English Sheepdog Woodford until the urge passes.
He's living his best life.
But I'm not sure his coat can handle much more of this.

So I asked Claude what actually works for frustration:

↳ Walk away — even 5 minutes resets the nervous system
↳ Draft the response you want to send (never send it)
↳ Wait 24 hours — most things look smaller tomorrow

I'd rather not respond at all.
But silence has its own cost.

The real insight?
Frustration is usually a signal.
A boundary that needs setting.
A filter that needs building.
The startup taught me that.

Some situations don't need better coping — they need to be exited.

It reminds me of one of my favorite AI movies, War Games:

"Sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game."

I guess writing this post was my coping mechanism today.
And I do feel better.

Now back to scratching Woodford's belly. 🐶

What's your go-to when frustration hits? 👇

I'm tired of explaining AI by referencing dystopia.
 
The Matrix. The Terminator. Black Mirror.
 
Every conversation about AI's future eventually lands on a movie where machines enslave or exterminate humanity.
 
BUT here's the thing:
 
Our pop culture imagination is stuck in 1984.
 
We have no shared vocabulary for AI going well.
 
No blockbuster where AI helps cure cancer in 5 years instead of 50. No franchise where intelligent machines make abundance possible for everyone. (Well, maybe the Jetsons for those of us old enough to remember the cartoon.)
 
No cultural touchstone for the upside.
So when people think "AI future," they default to red-eyed robots.
 
I think caution is certainly needed, but what pop culture and sci-fi have brought us is pessimism without balance.
 
Dario Amodei wrote something that shifted my thinking. He calls it "Machines of Loving Grace" — a vision where AI accelerates biology, reduces poverty, and amplifies human potential.
 
Google it. It's about 15,000 words. Worth every one of them.
Not utopia. Not naive optimism.
Just... what if this actually goes right?
We need more stories like that.
 
Maybe I need to write one. Or maybe I have already started. 😉
Not utopia. Not dystopia. Something in between — where AI genuinely improves our lives AND disrupts them. Where readers see both the promise and the friction.
 
Most importantly: a story that gives people the background to understand where this could go.
 
Because informed people use their voices.
And right now, the future is being shaped by those who show up.
 
What's your favorite optimistic AI story? I'm looking for recommendations. 👇

Tuesday, a laptop update wiped out my presentation.
 
I'm speaking at North Carolina Technology Association (NC TECH) AI for Good in Charlotte today. 27 slides. Speaker notes. Gone.
 
So I did what I've been preaching for two years: I let my AI agents rebuild it. But using my data. 
 
They pulled together the frameworks, the data, the structure. It wasn't perfect—I spent yesterday editing and refining.
 
But here's the thing: what would have been an 8-hour panic became a 1-hour polish.
 
AI handled the mechanics. I handled the judgment.
 
That's not a backup plan. That's the point.
 
Today I'm presenting "The 10-Year Strategy: Building for Durability in an Age of Machine Speed."
 
Here's what I'm covering:
 
↳ Why "we have AI" went from competitive advantage (2023) to table stakes (2025) to competitive liability (2026)
 
↳ The Value/Defensibility Matrix—a framework for evaluating which AI investments actually create lasting advantage
 
↳ The Four AI Moats that competitors can't easily copy: proprietary data, feedback loops, workflow integration, and organizational fluency
 
↳ Why governance is your next competitive moat (companies with clear AI governance deploy 40% faster)
 
↳ The Four Signals framework for responsible AI: Transparency, Accountability, Participation, Adaptation
 
The core insight: Everyone has access to the same models. The advantage comes from how you integrate, govern, and scale them.
 
If you are interested in how to think about your AI strategy for the next ten years.  Here's my ideas.

The_10-Year_Strategy_with_Speaker_Notes

This week, I watched the NC NPower graduates walk across the stage at MetLife in Cary, NC. 
 
I was honored to join the NC NPower Board this year.   Their mission is simple: create pathways into tech careers for people who have the drive but not the access. That's totally in line with what Todd Lewis and I have tried to create with All Things AI in building AI fluency in the Raleigh-Durham area. 

For those that aren't familiar, Npower offers tuition-free tech training programs primarily designed for young adults (typically 18–26) and military veterans (and their spouses) from underserved communities.  These programs, such as the Tech Fundamentals program, focus on building IT skills, offering certifications (such as CompTIA A+), and facilitating internships. 
 
One graduate impressed me so much that I offered him an internship this month.
 
His tech knowledge was solid.   But what stood out was his character—hard-working, entrepreneurial, wicked smart. That combination is rare.
 
Here's what most people get wrong about programs like NPower:
 
They think it's about giving people a handout.
It's not.   

It's about recognizing talent that's been overlooked or lack opportunity.
Many of these graduates worked full-time jobs while completing the program.   They didn't ask for shortcuts.   They did the work.
 
In the age of AI, what's going to be in demand isn't just technical skills—it's character, work ethic, the ability to learn, and the hunger to succeed.
 
These candidates have all of it.
 
So I'm asking my network for something I rarely ask:
 
Help them grow their connections.   Offer your support.   And if you have a role they're suited for—give them an interview.
 
One candidate I'd like to highlight: Haylee Borden she's so impressive that she's been asked to be a student graduate member of the NC Npower Board
 
She's a cybersecurity professional with A+ and Tech+ certifications, working toward her Sec+ and AWS SAA.  She brings a clinical research background, which means she knows how to be methodical and precise.  She's targeting penetration testing and SOC roles.
 
She doesn't need a handout; she needs an opportunity.
 
Kudos to Sarah Chick,Nicholas Allen, Dr. Christy A. Walker, Adam Waxman, and the entire NPower team for doing important work—and to AT&T for providing laptops to help these graduates start their professional journeys. Thanks to Wendy Kaszak and MetLife for hosting the event. 
 
Income inequality starts with a lack of opportunity.   Programs like NPower open the door.

Last month, I asked ChatGPT to help me update a project tracker in Notion based on emails it had just analyzed. It understood exactly what I needed. It drafted the perfect database entries. Then it told me to copy and paste everything manually.

That's when I realized the problem with most AI assistants: they can see your work, but they can't touch it. They're brilliant consultants who aren't allowed to write anything down.

Claude changed that for me. Through something called the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Claude doesn't just read my Notion workspace—it creates pages, updates databases, and manages content directly. The same AI conversation that analyzes my project requirements can also build the documentation. No copying. No pasting. No context switching.

This isn't a minor convenience. It's the difference between an AI that advises and an AI that executes. As of December 2025, MCP has become the industry standard, with OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft adopting it through the Linux Foundation's new Agentic AI Foundation.

The Model Context Protocol gives AI the hands to match its eyes MCP is an open standard that creates secure, two-way connections between AI assistants

Open article: Why I Switched from ChatGPT to Claude for Real Work by Mark Hinkle • 4 min read

Why I Switched from ChatGPT to Claude for Real Work

McKinsey's State of AI 2025 confirms what many executives quietly suspect: AI adoption is nearly universal, but AI value remains stubbornly rare. The gap between doing AI and winning with AI has never been wider.

As McKinsey partner Michael Chui puts it: "It takes hard work to do it well."

- 88% of organizations now use AI in at least one function, yet only 6% qualify as "high performers" capturing more than 5% of EBIT from their AI investments.
- Two-thirds of companies remain stuck in pilot purgatory—running experiments that never scale into enterprise-wide transformation.
- High performers are three times more likely to have fundamentally redesigned workflows around AI, treating it as organizational transformation rather than technology deployment. McKinsey's research is unambiguous: "Of 25 attributes tested for organizations of all sizes, the redesign of workflows has the biggest effect on an organization's ability to see EBIT impact from its use of gen AI."
- The companies building durable AI advantages share four characteristics: proprietary data assets, compounding feedback loops, deep workflow integration, and organizational AI fluency.

The question isn't whether to invest in AI. It's whether the AI you're building today will matter in 2035.

Gartner's Haritha Khandabattu frames the stakes clearly: "With AI investment remaining strong this year, a sharper emphasis is being placed on using AI for operational scalability and real-time intelligence." The emphasis on scalability and intelligence—not just adoption—signals where the market is heading.

Why most AI investments won't survive the decade—and what to do about it The CFO at a mid-sized financial services firm had a question that stopped he

Open article: Build AI That Lasts by Mark Hinkle • 10 min read

I've been wanting to go to the Google Bull Pen or is it bullpen,  forever.  I got to walk around the outside of the campus in Mountain View once, but thanks so much for lunch and the tour, George Dohanich, and for helping me check that off the list.  Apparently, Ben Heller was too busy to take me before going to the other side. 😆 

I am so excited that they have decided to replace Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn with Macie Fellows and me for the making of The Internship Part II.  Can't wait to start filming. 😉

AI & Emerging Tech Partner | Staffing, Consulting & Advisory | Client Partner | Board Member | Hiker

Got to step out of the home office for a bite at the Durham Google campus with George Dohanich and Mark Hinkle  —because there’s always room for ice cream. 
Great conversations (mostly about our 🐶 ), top-tier food, and even better views. Days like this are a good reminder of how energizing it is to connect in person.

The AI conversation is about to change. For three years, we've focused on what AI can say and generate. The next decade will be defined by what AI can do—physically, in the real world, with hands, wheels, and sensors that interpret touch, force, and motion.

Waymo now completes 450,000 paid robotaxi rides per week—nearly double its April figure—and targets 1 million weekly by end of 2026, demonstrating that physical AI scales commercially.

Hyundai announced plans to mass-produce 30,000 Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoids annually by 2028, marking the first major U.S. commitment to humanoid robot manufacturing at scale.

Nvidia declared "the ChatGPT moment for robotics is here" and released Cosmos Reason 2 and Isaac GR00T N1.6—open models that give machines the ability to see, reason, and act in physical space.

China has filed 7,705 humanoid robot patents over five years versus 1,561 in the U.S., according to Morgan Stanley—a 5-to-1 advantage that signals where the next technology race is being fought.

For enterprise leaders, the strategic question has shifted: not whether AI will enter the physical world, but whether your organization is positioned to benefit when it does.

I've spent the last couple of years writing my AI newsletters as part of The Artificially Intelligent Enterprise Network, and I enjoy that.

But I have a confession: I don't want to be the star of my own content.
 
This year, I committed to doing more video. But the best AI insights aren't in my head — they're with people building real things every day.
 
So we launched the All Things AI Lunch & Learn series. 
Today was our first one.
 
The problem we tackled: everyone's throwing LLMs at everything.
 
Slow. 
Expensive. 
Overkill for most tasks.
 
Our speaker, Robert Thelen, co-founder of LlamaFarm showed a more innovative approach — use the right tool for the job.  Fast, lightweight models for the routine stuff.  Only call the big LLM when you actually need reasoning.

He also did this with his company's open source software. 
 
The payoff? 
Faster results. 
Lower cost. 
Runs on your laptop without sending data to the cloud.
 
Next week's lunch and learn is how to use Manus AI to complete tasks with agentic workflows. 

I've included this week's YouTube recording and next week's Lunch and Learn for you in the comments below.👇

bobby weir died this weekend at 78.
for those not in the know like Scott Sage, he was a lifelong member of the grateful dead
 
no AI will ever write a song that makes strangers hug in a parking lot.
 
I'd just seen him play for the first time three years ago. but I grew up and grew old listening to him and the dead.
 
that's the thing about the grateful dead—you didn't have to be there to 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. the music leaked into your bloodstream through cassette tapes and late-night radio and that one friend who wouldn't shut up about the wall of sound.
 
my buddy Timothy "timm" wilson's grandpa, billy grillo, was bill kreutzmann's drum tech and a close friend of the band. timm actually toured with them when he was eight years old. eight. while the rest of us were playing little league, this kid was watching the dead from the side of the stage.
 
he has great stories. the kind you can't tell on linkedin.
 
anyhow, I finally got to see the dead live—with taylor swift's old boyfriend on guitar, no less.
 
and here's the weird part: it didn't feel like I was seeing them for the first time. it felt like I was finally showing up to a party I'd been hearing about my whole life.
 
weir wasn't just playing songs. he was holding open a door that garcia walked through decades ago, inviting anyone weird enough to follow.
 
the dead taught a generation that the best things in life don't have clean endings. songs bleed into each other. shows go longer than they should. and sometimes the bus comes by and you get on.
 
bobby got on that bus a long time ago.
 
now he's just taking a different trip.
 
and no, you can't automate this feeling. we've built machines that can write symphonies and pass bar exams and generate art that sells for millions.
 
but the algorithm will never understand why grown men weep when the drums fade into space.
 
with the addition of ai to our lives i think we'll cherish the analog over our digital worlds. 
so put down the laptop. close the chatbot.
and listen to the music. 

[written admittedly poorly in hunter s. thompson style, but it seemed fitting for bobby's obit]

I used to recommend new AI tools first. Now I ask one question.
 
For years, I've helped companies build AI strategies. AND every conversation started the same way: "What tools should we buy?"
 
BUT here's what I kept seeing:
 
They already had AI.  Sitting right there.  Unused.
 
Google Workspace has Gemini built in.  Microsoft 365 has Copilot.  Most orgs are paying for AI features their teams never touch.
 
THEREFORE, my first question changed:
 
"What's your current utilization?"
 
In Google Workspace, check it yourself: ↳ Admin Console → Generative AI → Gemini Reports ↳ Choose Org-level or User-level usage ↳ See exactly who's using what
 
Before you buy anything new, look at what you're already paying for.
 
The companies winning at AI aren't the ones with the most tools.  They're the ones actually using what they have.
 
Stop collecting.  Start activating.
 
What's your org's AI utilization look like? 👇

I am starting to get excited!  Todd Lewis and I have been running meetups, recruiting speakers and sponsors, and the big party, All Things AI 2026, is coming together.  

Here's the thing, though, we need the attendees to get their tickets so we can finish the final preparations. 

We didn't make this conference unattainable, but we still need to cover the costs.  Right now, you can get a full day of training on AI from industry experts and a conference ticket for $299.  That's a huge value, just do a search for other conferences, and you'll see, and lots of these are good, but you have to hop on a plan and get a hotel on top of that.  If you are in RTP, this is the deal for you.

So get your tickets and share this with your network, it'll help us fund future AI events and keep our prices low.  Here's a little comparison for you. 

Conferences:
HumanX (San Francisco): $2,650–$3,995.
NVIDIA GTC (San Jose): $1,515 (early/alumni) – $2,525 (regular).
World Summit AI (USA): ~$1,599 – $2,699.
Ai4 (Las Vegas): ~$1,395 (early) – $3,195 (standard).
AI Council 2026: ~$1,299 (early bird).
The AI Summit New York: ~$849 (Academic) – $1,499 (Government).
ALL IN 2026 (Montreal): $599 (presale) – $1,299 (2-day).

Round 1 Speakers for All Things AI 2026 are here — and this lineup is unreal! 😱

We’ve just unveiled our first wave of speakers for All Things AI, and it’s a powerhouse roster of global builders, executives, and practitioners shaping what’s next in AI.

We’re featuring voices from Truist, Amazon, Mistral AI, Intuit, Meta, Netflix, IBM, GitHub, and many more.
These are the people you’ll be quoting in meetings for months.

And yes — the schedule is officially live.

📅 What to Expect

Day 1: Deep-Dive Workshops + Extended Sessions
For practitioners who want to go beyond the surface.
One of the most cost-effective AI upskilling opportunities you’ll find in:
- AI for Business Professionals
- AI for DevOps
- AI for Agents

Day 2: High-Impact Keynotes + Lightning Talks
Fast-paced, actionable, and packed with real-world insights.

We’re excited to welcome an incredible first wave of speakers across enterprise, infrastructure, product, governance, and AI engineering — including:

Enterprise AI Leaders & Practitioners
- Venkat Venkatakrishnan (Truist)
- Divya Mahajan (Amazon)
- 👨🏾‍💻 Ben Ilegbodu (Netflix)
- Brian Moynihan (Duke University)
- Vijayakumar Gurusamy Raju (MassMutual)

AI Builders, Engineers & Platform Experts
- Achin Gupta (Netskope)
- Adrian Cole (Tetrate)
- Aaron Delp (Mistral AI)
- Jose Palafox (GitHub)
- Justin Jeffress (Meta)
- Justin Chau (Intuit)
- Luis Lastras (IBM)

Open Source, Security & Governance Voices
- Keith Bergelt (Open Invention Network)
- Marc Sirkin (Marc Sirkin Consulting)
- John Willis (AI CIO)

Founders, Operators & Community Builders
- Craig McLuckie (Stacklok)
- Don Shin (CrossComm)
- Greg Boone (Walk West)
- taylor desseyn (Torc.dev)
- Mark Hinkle (Peripety Labs)
- William "whurley ​‌‍" Hurley (Strangeworks)

Strategy, Storytelling & Growth
- Pam Didner (B2B Consultant)
- Jen McFarland (Marit Digital)

Support, Developer Experience & Real-World AI Teams
- Yassah Reed (Intercom)
- Suha Mokalla, Ph.D. Mokalla (Attention Arc)
- Eli Etherton (Silicon Dojo)

And yes — even a little humor along the way…
- Evan Wimpey (Predictable Jokes)

Plus Julie Carpenter and many more speakers still to be announced so stay tuned!

✨ The conference is organized into six tracks:
- AI Builders, AI Engineers
- AI Users, AI Executives
- AI Governance + Security & Compliance
- AI in the Enterprise

Read more about the speakers here: https://lnkd.in/etRf7_y7


And if you haven’t grabbed your ticket yet for All Things AI this March… now’s the time.

🎟️ Grab your tickets here: https://cstu.io/4f3b21

I'm fascinated and horrified by what I just watched a developer do over the last week. 
 
Peter Steinberger retired after selling PSPDFKit. Stopped coding for years.
 
AND when he came back, he didn't write software the way any of us would recognize.
 
He glued WhatsApp to Claude Code, piped output to his phone, and had a working AI agent in one hour. That agent became OpenClaw 100,000 GitHub stars in three days. Mac Minis sold out globally — one developer bought 40.
 
This is how he builds software: 

↳ 5 to 10 AI agents running simultaneously on different branches 
↳ They write the code, test it, and debug it 
↳ When the bot can't do something, it finds the API and writes the integration itself
 
His quote?  "I don't even read the code I deliver."
 
Now that's scary!👻
 
BUT here's what nobody's celebrating:
 
Cisco called it "a security nightmare." Researchers extracted crypto private keys via prompt injection in five minutes. Steinberger himself says: "There is no 'perfectly secure' setup."
 
I bought the ticket and took the ride before.
 
Early Linux? "You can't run production on open source." Then everyone did. Early cloud? "You can't put real data on someone else's servers." Then everyone did.
 
The security models caught up.  They always do — but only AFTER the builders move.
 
The people building now define the guardrails. The people waiting inherit them.
 
I'm still fascinated. And still horrified. Both feelings are correct.

Where's your line between velocity and control? 👇

Remember the scene in The Matrix where Neo gets kung fu uploaded directly into his brain? One moment, he knows nothing about martial arts. Next, he opens his eyes and says, "I know kung fu."

That's what Claude Skills do for your AI workflows.

When you want Claude to do something specific—follow your brand guidelines, format reports a certain way, apply your company's writing style—you usually have two options: prompt it every single time, or set up custom instructions in a project that only work when you're inside that project.  Otherwise, you're back to copying and pasting the same detailed prompts over and over.

Skills change this completely. You create a knowledge package once—instructions, best practices, examples, specific guidance for a task—upload it to Claude, and you're done. From that point forward, whenever you mention anything relevant to that Skill (or even start a task it applies to), Claude automatically uses that knowledge. No manual triggering. No remembering which project has which instructions. It just works.

Anthropic launched Skills in October 2025, marking a meaningful shift in how we work with AI assistants. Instead of training yourself to write better prompts, you train Claude once and move on.

Stop copying and pasting the same prompts. Skills let you upload expertise directly into Claude's brain. The beauty of Skills is the "anywhere, anytim

Open article: Claude Skills: Teach Your AI Once, Use It Forever by Mark Hinkle • 6 min read

Claude Skills: Teach Your AI Once, Use It Forever

I am so excited to have so many of my friends coming to town for All Things AI in March, but I am also excited to see my local friends doing amazing things with AI.  

I'm looking forward to Aaron's talk.  He and I worked together at Citrix 15 years ago, but since then, he's had an interesting journey, as have I. 

The thing that's great about Aaron is that he's highly technical but still very good at making these concepts highly accessible a skill he honed of the years hosting the leading cloud podcast, The CloudCast with his broadcast partner, the eternal optimist, Brian Gracely.

Come meet Aaron in Durham.

Global Head of AI Technical Marketing @ Mistral | Built 10 Teams at 4 Hypergrowth Companies | Launched 2 AI Solutions into Highly Regulated Verticals | GTM Strategy | Alliances and Channel

I'm excited to announce I'll be speaking on Mistral's OSS models and frameworks at the All Things AI Conference in Durham. I'll have to see if I can cook up a new demo. The event is March 23-34, I hope to see you there!

https://lnkd.in/ey8Yjy7m

Mark Hinkle Todd Lewis Sophia Yang, Ph.D. Clément C. Joffrey THOMAS Ari P. Varun Jaitly Bethann Noble Jason McDonald Sarah Beldo Artur Nutley Avinash Sooriyarachchi Barry Conklin Ian Mathew Param Singh Sidharth R.

Open article: All Things AI 2026 • March 23-24 • Durham, NC by 2026.allthingsai.org

All Things AI 2026 • March 23-24 • Durham, NC

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