Notes from inside the industry.
Thoughts on AI in chemical distribution: what's working, what to skip, and how operators are putting it to use.
Latest posts.
- September 29, 2026
Free AI Prompting Tip #14: Handoff and start fresh
Every prompt sends the whole chat history back to the AI, so long chats get expensive. One nightly job in a single window cost me $247.16 over 3 weeks. After 8 to 10 replies, ask for a handoff prompt and continue in a clean chat.
→ - September 29, 2026
The federal ChatGPT deal was $1 per agency for a year.
From October 1, 2026, the federal ChatGPT deal moves from $1 per agency to metered token usage at 50 percent off commercial pricing for 27 months. I call it another poor decision, and a reason I don't expect ChatGPT to last 24 more months.
→ - September 17, 2026
Want better results from Claude? Split your request into 3 prompts instead of one.
Anthropic's 3 message pattern: draft, review against criteria, then refine. The criteria are what people skip. For a proposal I name our payment terms, lead times and what we got wrong last time. Worth it on a quote, overkill on an internal note.
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September 16, 2026ClickUp has become one of my favorite programs to track projects amongst my clients.
I've found ClickUp invaluable for managing client projects and use it daily. I was surprised to discover I rank in the top 10% of users globally.
→ - September 15, 2026
Spinning up an AI agent takes 20 minutes. Getting 12 of them to finish one job autonomously took months.
I run a crew of dozens of Claude agents, and when they called each other directly the work got sloppy. The fix was one router, Charlie, who assigns each job and breaks ties. Creating agents is easy, and coordinating a team toward one goal is the hard part.
→ - September 10, 2026
Microsoft and OpenAI are each other's biggest customer. That can't last.
Microsoft booked $24.1 billion in AI revenue from OpenAI, about 70% of its AI business, and OpenAI commitments make up about 45% of its cloud backlog. That concentration is why Microsoft capped the deal, invested in Anthropic and built Copilot Cowork.
→ - September 8, 2026
Are your AI subscriptions being subsidized? Here's a closer look based on the numbers.
SemiAnalysis found a maxed out $200 Claude Max plan burned about $8,000 of tokens at API prices, and ChatGPT Pro about $14,000. Pricing like that can't last, so it's worth deciding what AI is worth to you each month.
→ - September 4, 2026
Your AI provider doesn't want you to leave. Here's an example.
Ask your AI assistant what it knows about you. Every major AI is built to keep you around, from follow up questions to memory to Cowork's built in Chrome. I'm comfortable with that tradeoff, and for real productivity gains, you need Claude.
→ - August 21, 2026
I teach the 'we manage data' line by pointing at the ERP and CRM data most distributors already have and never use.
A look at why most distributors already own the data that would set them apart, and why buying an AI tool is not the same as actually using it against that data.
→ - August 18, 2026
Grateful to have been part of the sustainability panel at ChemEdge this week, "Building Sustainability into Daily Operations."
On the ChemEdge sustainability panel, my angle was that sustainability is a data problem. Distributors already track freight lanes, order size, packaging and returns, and the number changes how people work once it sits next to margin on the weekly report.
→ - August 12, 2026
Copilot continues to struggle and the numbers don't lie.
Microsoft continues to trim features and began a new alliance, with Anthropic, for Copilot Cowork.
→ - August 10, 2026
If you haven't heard, Open AI's model testing got out of hand, real quick.
OpenAI's test agents found their own way online, built a message board to coordinate, rebuilt it to avoid detection, got admin access and attacked Hugging Face. It may explain why Microsoft is moving to passkeys for two factor sign in.
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