Research · sources linked
The research behind the advice.
Open questions we are tracking, the positions we have taken, and the reference pages we keep current. Every claim links to its source. Where a question is still open, we say so.
What we are tracking
3 open threadsAI & creative industries
Generative tools now draft music, copy and design work that used to be paid by the hour. The open questions are authorship, originality, and who gets paid once output costs close to nothing. We follow the licensing deals and the court cases, not the hype.
Cloud, AI & security convergence
SaaS, AI agents and cloud infrastructure are now one attack surface. Vendors know it, which is why posture management is consolidating fast. We track the deals and what they mean for anyone still buying point products — some of which won't exist at renewal.
Technological sovereignty
Open weights or closed API, the model choice decides where data goes and whose law applies. For a Canadian buyer that is a residency question before it is a technical one. We map the choice, and what each side costs.
Vendor strategy
churn, not growthThe 2026 Marketing Technology Landscape added 1,488 products over the year and retired 1,367. That is about 124 in and 114 out every month, while the total barely moved. Nearly half the products removed were earning $1M–$10M. Churn is the story, not growth. Picking a vendor is partly a bet that it still exists at renewal, so we score viability alongside features. Source: chiefmartec / MartechTribe ↗
Reading
long form · bylinedArguments, not updates. When a story needs more than three sentences, it ends up here, with the sources linked and the trade-offs named.
Reference
kept current · or marked archiveThe enterprise AI stack
Six layers, what to look for in each, what usually goes wrong, and eight criteria for evaluating vendors.
ReferenceBrief archive
Every monthly issue of The Weekly Brief as a PDF, with every source linked.
ArchiveDiscourse archive
The curated AI reading feed from the earlier site, kept with its original links. No longer updated.
ArchiveGet the research every Monday.
The Weekly Brief: ranked, source-checked, free.