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‘Digital transformation’ sounds like a parody of meaningless tech marketing, but actually captures some pretty interesting and important shifts in big company tech. It’s not as exciting as crypto or AR, and it takes a decade or two, but it’s just as big as smartphones.
over a year ago

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More from Essays - Benedict Evans

AI’s metrics question

With every platform shift, we want to measure the growth but we’re confused about what to measure. That’s partly a problem of data and definitions, but it’s really a question about what this is going to be.

a month ago 23 votes
GenAI’s adoption puzzle

Generative AI chatbots might be a life-changing transformation in the nature of computing, that can replace all software, but so far, most of its users only pick it up every week or two, and far fewer have made it part of their lives. Is that a time problem or a product problem?

a month ago 34 votes
What kind of disruption?

Software ate the world. Uber and Airbnb didn’t sell software - they disrupted and redefined markets. But what kind of disruption are we talking about ?

4 months ago 36 votes
Apple innovation and execution

It matters that Apple’s new Siri will be late, and it matters more that Apple didn’t realise. Is it more than that?

4 months ago 41 votes
The Deep Research problem

OpenAI’s Deep Research is built for me, and I can’t use it. It’s another amazing demo, until it breaks. But it breaks in really interesting ways.

5 months ago 47 votes

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The Remarkable Incompetence At The Heart Of Tech

Hello premium subscribers! Today I have the first guest post I've ever commissioned (read: paid) on Where's Your Ed At - Nik Suresh, one of the greatest living business and tech writers, best-known for his piece I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again

15 hours ago 5 votes
At least five interesting things: Bad Policy edition (#67)

ICE backlash; progressive bumbling; antisocial Americans; bad inflation data; the Roaring 20s; AI politics; China vs. America

20 hours ago 3 votes
AI and immigration uncertainty threaten Nigeria’s dreams of becoming an outsourcing hot spot

The West African nation wants to become the next global outsourcing hub, but as AI takes over basic tech tasks and U.S. visa hurdles rise, replicating India’s success could be challenging.

20 hours ago 2 votes
Trump is enabling Chinese power

An incompetent, selfish, inwardly focused administration is making America less of an obstacle to China's rise.

3 days ago 6 votes
Fed up with ChatGPT, Latin America is building its own

Dozens of organizations in the region have partnered to develop a large language model that better understands Latin America’s cultural and linguistic nuances.

4 days ago 8 votes