FIRMSIDEAI
NEWSLETTER // NOTES
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Newsletter

Practical AI, in plain English.

Notes from an operator on getting real work out of AI, written for the people it usually leaves behind. No hype, no jargon wall, no pretending the hard parts are easy.

01

Latest writing.

JUL 2026  ·  5 MIN READ  ·  GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING

Stop writing proposals you were never going to win.

The hardest part of government contracting was never the writing. It was knowing which bids to skip. The information you need to decide has been public the whole time.

JUL 2026  ·  3 MIN READ  ·  FIRST STATE LENS

Data to the People

The same government, two very different views. Two people pay for the same government, and only one of them can afford to know what it does. On the free public data we built to close that gap.

JUN 2026  ·  6 MIN READ  ·  FIRST STATE AI SUMMIT

Most AI equity conversations get the diagnosis wrong.

A note from the First State AI Summit. Anyone can open the app, so the technology was never the gap. The gap is everything around it, and closing it has to be designed in.

02

Why I write it.

AI is going to make a small group of people a lot more powerful. I would rather it reach the rest. So I write in plain language about what actually works, what does not, and how to meet this shift on purpose instead of getting run over by it.

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Prefer email? Write me at mark@firmsideai.com.