Commentary brings you FastForward’s take on the big trends and developments in enterprise tech and innovation — from AI and cloud to security, data and strategy. These pieces go beyond the headlines to unpack what’s happening, why it matters and what it means for leaders and builders in the space.
Commentary
I was at a party last weekend and had a couple of conversations with college professors about their use of AI. I was curious how they were dealing with the tools, whether they were embracing them or blocking them. These two were at opposite ends of the spectrum, though interestingly
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For 25 years, Google was a reliable waystation on the way to a website. You entered a few keywords, clicked a link or two and generally found what you wanted. AI search is altering that relationship. And it's not just changing how we search, it's eroding
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If you were to walk around Silicon Valley these days, you’d find nary a negative word about AI. It’s advancing fast. It’s powerful, so powerful we should be afraid of it. And if you’re not all in, you’re going to be left in the dust
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I've been off for a couple of weeks, enjoying vacation, but still keeping one eye on tech news, and it's a little unbelievable how much happened in two weeks in July, a time when news is supposed to slow down. Consider that over the last couple
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As many of you know, I'm a Boston sports fan, especially the Red Sox. This year they are among the worst teams in the league, and it seems their story is a case study in how difficult transformation around AI can be. Ownership brought in a hardcore stats
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Disclosure: I was paid by Pax8 to moderate a fireside chat with CEO Scott Chasin at the company's Beyond 2026 conference, and some of his comments from that conversation are quoted in this piece. Pax8 had no input into or review of this piece before publication. My editorial
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The headlines have been full of the craziness of tokenmaxxing as employees compete to burn the highest number of AI tokens to top AI spending leader boards. Microsoft got so fed up with the high cost of developer's use of coding agents, it cut off access to Claude
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When Mark Twain popularized the phrase 'lies, damned lies and statistics,' he was referring to the practice of using statistics to unduly influence public opinion. These days, you can swap statistics for AI. That’s because tech's big AI execs have been trying to convince the
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I watched this week’s unveiling of Google’s latest smart glasses with a sense of déjà vu. I was among the early participants in the Google Glass Explorer program back in 2013, an initial experiment in smart glasses that in hindsight was well ahead of its time. I ended
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I wouldn’t blame you for being confused about AI’s impact on jobs. One minute, big tech says AI will replace workers; the next, it’s hiring thousands to implement it. So which is it, or could both be true? Let's start with the premise that AI
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As any sports fan knows, teams thrive when they have players with a variety of experience. Having a pipeline of younger players in various stages of development helps give the team new blood, cheaper talent and a way to transition from older players as they move on or retire. Organizations
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One lesson we learned during the pandemic is the value of in-person connections. I was at TechCrunch at the time and like many publications, we tried to keep the conference engine revving with a series of virtual gatherings. Of course, it worked from a content standpoint, but the true