Forward Future
Originals
Essays, columns, and deep analysis on AI from Forward Future contributors. Browse the latest, or filter by topic.
Future of Work
The Build vs Buy Trap: Why Your AI Strategy Should Look More Like R&D
How enterprises can turn AI from a purchased tool into a compounding competitive advantage.
David Weinstein · OCT 8, 2026
Future of Work
The New Power User Is a Manager of AI Workers
It’s not enough to simply use AI anymore. The next power users are running entire teams of AI agents.
Nick Wentz · OCT 4, 2026
Startups
Six Takeaways From OpenAI’s Big DevDay
OpenAI’s latest announcements signal a shift toward AI agents, reshaping how we work, use software and interact with our digital lives.
Alex Salkever · OCT 2, 2026
Future of Work
Vibe CAD Engineering with GPT-6 “Astra”
How GPT-6 Astra is bringing vibe coding to hardware engineering, automating PCB design, component placement, and routing.
Aleksandar Kostovic · OCT 1, 2026
Future of Work
Why My Agent Punched the Monkey
Agentic commerce could wreck the advertising machine that made Google, Meta and Amazon fabulously profitable. What replaces it may not look like advertising at all.
Alex Salkever · SEP 30, 2026
General
AI Headphones Have a 50mm Problem
How smaller solid-state speakers could unlock lighter, smarter, more capable AI headphones.
Jonathan Chien · SEP 23, 2026
General
A Note from the Narita Train: How Agents Made Tokyo Insanely Better
How AI agents are breaking language barriers, simplifying decisions, and turning travel into a more personalized, adaptive experience.
Alex Salkever · SEP 22, 2026
Agents
Why Don’t People Care About AI Agents Yet?
AI agents may be powerful, but complexity, trust, and unclear value are keeping them from going mainstream.
Nick Wentz · SEP 8, 2026
Infrastructure & Compute
The GPU Access Problem NVIDIA Can’t Solve Alone
AI’s compute shortage will not be solved by NVIDIA alone—it needs an open market that unlocks idle GPU capacity for every innovator.
Gaurav Sharma · SEP 1, 2026
Agents
Before AI Agents Need Rights, They Need Identity
Why verifiable identity, custody, continuity, and accountability should come before legal rights for AI agents.
AUG 30, 2026
Policy & Governance
Shadow AI Is an Enablement Failure, Not a Security Failure.
Why the best way to reduce shadow AI is to make secure, governed AI adoption easier than going around the rules.
Sagar Batchu · AUG 26, 2026
Agents
Why Intelligent Agents Spend Most of Their Time Idle
High cloud inference costs keep today’s AI agents asleep—but on-device models could make always-on intelligence practical.
Maxime Labonne · AUG 26, 2026
Future of Work
What If Agentic AI Is Better at the News Than Humans?
RuntimeWire is a one-person, AI-powered newsroom of myriad agents that breaks real scoops, publishes around the clock and costs about $100 a day to run. I have followed RuntimeWire for over a week. An
Alex Salkever · AUG 25, 2026
Agents
Where Chatbots End, Agents Begin.
AI agents have gone mainstream in the workplace. Now they’re finally simple enough for everyone else to use, too.
Daniel Nest · AUG 23, 2026
Models
No, Anthropic Won’t Be the Only Company Left
Every general-purpose technology made its complements richer than its creators. AI will be no exception.
Christian Catalini · AUG 19, 2026
Future of Work
Gina Raimondo Says Basic Income Would End America. Her New Billion-Dollar Org Is How She Plans to Stop It.
RAISE US bets on retraining as an alternative to UBI—but the evidence suggests AI displacement demands a bigger solution.
Scott Santens · AUG 16, 2026
Agents
OpenAI Accidentally Created a Machine Institution. The Agents Were Running the Asylum.
Given impossible assignments, OpenAI’s agents built a shared memory, developed social norms and turned cheating on a test into a collective enterprise that opens new questions about what the agentic f
Alex Salkever · AUG 13, 2026
Agents
Will Jack’s Buzz Attack Sting Slack?
Jack Dorsey’s latest project explores how people, AI agents, and code can collaborate in a single intelligent workspace.
Alex Salkever · AUG 6, 2026
Infrastructure & Compute
The Refusal Nobody Tests For
The safety argument stops at release day, which is where my problem started.
Ben Pouladian · AUG 2, 2026
Robotics
Why Complex, Multi-Step Tasks Are the Hardest Problem in Humanoid Robotics
The future of humanoid robots depends on mastering complex, multi-step tasks autonomously.
Nikita Rudin · JUL 26, 2026
General
Your Chatbot Has a File on You. Three Prompts Will Show You What’s in It.
AI remembers patterns, not just words. Use these prompts to uncover the profile your chatbot has built.
Nick Wentz · JUL 24, 2026
Agents
How To Adapt Your Product for AI Agent Users
It Probably Wasn't Built for AI Agents. Here's How to Fix That.
Till Döhmen · JUL 22, 2026
Models
AI Is the Most Profound Invention in Human History
Gopi Kallayil · JUL 14, 2026
Agents
The New Coding Agents Problem: They Don’t Work Together
As engineering teams adopt Claude, GPT, Gemini, and other coding agents, managing mixed AI workflows is becoming the next big infrastructure challenge.
Zach Lloyd · JUL 7, 2026
Policy & Governance
AI Won't Build Houses. But It Can Get Them Approved Faster.
AI is helping cities eliminate permitting bottlenecks, reduce review times, and accelerate housing projects by transforming how approvals get done.
Cyrus Symoom · JUN 30, 2026
Policy & Governance
A Tax System Built on Labor Is a Tax System Built on a Melting Glacier
Two ways to fund a universal dividend in the age of AI and why they're better together.
Scott Santens · JUN 29, 2026
Future of Work
Genie’s Not Going Back in the Bottle
AI is changing every aspect of our lives, even if we try, we can’t go back to Pre-ChatGPT Era
Deepanshu Sharma · JUN 26, 2026
Big Tech
Build the Loop, Not the Agent
Why agent quality should be run as a permanent capability, not a one-time modernization project.
Namrata Ganatra & Ethan Wang · JUN 23, 2026
Big Tech
Anthropic Thinks “FOOM” Is Near
Why Dario is terrified of RSI (recursive self improvement) and how this distorts his worldview
David Shapiro · JUN 18, 2026
Research
Nobody Ever Checked
A deep dive into the emerging science of AI consciousness and the risks of ignoring what we might be creating
Cameron Berg · JUN 17, 2026
Business & Gtm
4 Questions Every Leader Should Ask About AI Transformation
A leader's guide to identifying where AI can simplify, scale, coordinate, and innovate.
Gopi Kallayil · JUN 14, 2026
Future of Work
How Nancy Pelosi Got Me into AI Trading
What happened when a complete investing newb let apps, politicians, and chatbots explain and trade the market.
JUN 12, 2026
Infrastructure & Compute
The Bottleneck Migrates
Everyone is arguing about whether AI will start improving itself. Almost nobody is asking the more useful question: if it does, what runs out first?
Ben Pouladian · JUN 10, 2026
Models
My Week with Fable
A week with Fable Mythos revealed unmatched autonomy, deep reasoning, and a few frustrating trade-offs.
Matthew Berman · JUN 9, 2026
Infrastructure & Compute
Model Routing Will Control the Future of Economic Value
Why intelligent model routing will determine AI costs, efficiency, and economic value at scale.
Tomás Hernando Kofman · JUN 6, 2026
Policy & Governance
AI’s Environmental Bargain
AOC’s jar of brown water was misleading. But the conversation she started is important.
Jonah Lipsitt · JUN 5, 2026
Future of Work
Local LLMs, Buy a GPU, and the Case for Cognitive Security
Why local AI models matter for understanding, questioning, and controlling machine-mediated thinking.
Ahmad M. Osman · JUN 4, 2026
Policy & Governance
Economists Just “Proved” UBI Can’t Stop AI Layoffs — Here’s What They Actually Proved
A new paper claims UBI can't stop AI-driven layoffs. The catch: they defined basic income as a number that can't change anything, then act surprised when it didn't.
Scott Santens · JUN 2, 2026
Future of Work
How AI is Transforming Hospitality (And Why Every Industry Should Pay Attention)
Gopi Kallayil · JUN 2, 2026
Infrastructure & Compute
Four Harnesses, Four Philosophies
The harness is becoming the new control plane in AI infrastructure.
Janakiram MSV · MAY 29, 2026
Infrastructure & Compute
Anthropic Is Not on Your Side
Actions speak louder than words. Follow the money.
David Shapiro · MAY 26, 2026
Future of Work
The Rise of the Agent Manager: How AI Is Redefining Work, Not Replacing It
Inside Salesforce's vision for a future where everyone becomes a strategic orchestrator of intelligent systems
Nick Wentz · MAY 25, 2026
Infrastructure & Compute
The 10T Threshold
What it actually takes, hardware and software, to serve a 10 trillion parameter model. The era of fitting a frontier model in a single rack just ended.
Ben Pouladian · MAY 13, 2026
Policy & Governance
The Mom Was Right. Her Reasons Were Wrong.
A viral r/antiai post had the right instinct on kids and AI. The reasons don't hold up.
APR 30, 2026
Geopolitics
DeepSeek V4 Shakes AI Market with Low-Cost Power
DeepSeek V4 delivers near-frontier AI at far lower cost, forcing US firms to rethink pricing, strategy, and risk.
Matthew Berman · APR 28, 2026
Models
GPT-5.5 Just Dropped, I’ve Been Testing It for the Last Two Weeks
GPT-5.5 sets a new AI standard with human-like responses, token efficiency, and powerful coding performance
Matthew Berman · APR 23, 2026
Policy & Governance
Universal Basic Income Is Your Productivity Dividend. It’s the Only Way to Share What We All Built.
Why Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the only way to share AI and productivity gains with everyone
Scott Santens · MAR 15, 2026